lol you can chop any story down to a handful of waypoints, but like you said, why?

The story is how you get there. It’s the characters you get to know along the way. In Forbidden West specifically, Aloy understanding the technology to some reasonable level and trying to navigate a superstitious primitive culture is a compelling dynamic that’s written well and really well acted. I’m not that deep with it yet, but the character is compelling out of the gate.