Yes but they have fallen into a success trap. I have seen the same trend with Mincraft, KSP and Subnautica. An indi developer starts with a great concept and a true open world game. The player can progress through the tech tree how they choose but doing so requires exploration. All is good. Then the developer starts to tighten the reigns. The tech tree become more rigid. Exploration must happen in a more specific order. And then the graphics department takes over, adding more and more objects until a previously huge and open world is a tightly cluttered mess.

Think of how subnautica moved. The second game was very literally denser to the point that they slowed down movement to preserve any sense of space. And each step inthe tech tree required specific tools from a specific place. No more free explorations. No more alternatives. The player lost control over the story. Subnautica 3 is now so dense and linear I gave up after a week. It is more a decorated fishtank than open world.

I still play factorio (1000x) but I do not play the new planets. That whole rocket process is so locked down that there is little for me to enjoy. I get bored whenever there is only one way to do a thing and no room for a player to invent alternatives.

This is a weird perspective. The middle planets can be approached in any order. And mods allow near-infinite variety - especially those that build on the platform of custom planets.

> there is only one way to do a thing and no room for a player to invent alternatives.

Sounds to me like you are caught up in trying to chase optimization and bemoaning the fact that there's only one optimal strategy. Do a no trains run! Or a no bots run. Or a 1000x science modifier run, or Lazy Bastard, or Death World, or... there are plenty of constraints, both programmed-in or self-imposed, that can push you out of the "standard" optimal strategy.

Do you play Space Age just on Nauvis or are you playing without Space Age entirely?