Procedural generation ruined campaign exploration

I'm playing a beautiful game while staring at a map overlay

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"One of the earliest goals we had was... we don't want you to look at UI. We want you to look at the island." — Nate Fox (Creative Director, Ghost of Tsushima)

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"We wanted to give the player a gentle guide... The 'Grace' is a visualization of that. It's not forcing you, but it's a hint for those who feel lost." — Hidetaka Miyazaki (Director, Elden Ring)

There is a fundamental conflict between the Campaign's procedural generation and the goal of "exploration."

I love exploring in single-player RPGs like Skyrim or Elden Ring because those worlds are curated. Every dead end was placed with intent: environmental storytelling, a unique item, or a hidden view. Even when games use procedural generation for their base terrain, the final map is reviewed and approved by human designers who ensure every area has purpose.

In PoE2's Campaign, the maps are fully procedural and randomized each run. Any deviation from the main path is just random noise. I know that if I wander into a dead end, I'll just find a generated corridor. Asking players to "explore" a fully randomized map like this, is like asking them to explore a motorway.

Either GGG recreates the campaign maps to be curated structures with set layouts (like the games above), or the game implements Immersive Guidance (environmental lighting, wind trails, etc.) that subtly points the way.

Allow me to close the Overlay Map and actually look at the game world.