Just played Tsushima to check how big of a jump Yotei is visually and it feels like a last gen game, as it should.
The draw distance is the only major improvement in Yotei and it’s significant enough for me to never touch Tsushima again.
The story is also more personal and Atsu has more personality than Jin, who was kinda boring.
Playing with Japanese audio as the English makes me cringe for some reason.
It’s also about the engine. Camera angles, fov, draw distance, scope of the world etc are usually optimised at the engine level. Reusing the same engine(or parts of the tech) could also be the reason they all look and feel similar. Theoretically they can invest in building new stuff, but at the end of the day it’s a business/maximising profits etc