The narrative work in Sable was really underrated. The side stories are playful but always grounded in the world and it has such a consistently gentle and humane tone. I think that's so interesting for a big adventure type game in a fantasy setting!
It was such a smart move to make it a coming of age story about a character trying to find their place in the world because it dovetails so well with an open world structure and provides a hook for getting the player to engage and be curious.
To expand on that a little, I wish we had more games that put you in an immersive setting where the goal was to explore and learn about it, rather than master it. Games in this space tend to have a kind of pioneer mentality or else hang a lot on big, hard to relate to genre tropes like unlocking your hidden powers, building up to facing a big evil thing, prophecies. etc. It's refreshing to have something with fun worldbuilding and a wide horizon feeling that's also focused on something like: 'what's it like to live here.'
