We delight in their unspoken possibility and shrug at their quirks.
Today, nearly every big release is set in an open world. In spite of their many obvious failings or limitations, we've been losing ourselves within open worlds for some 30-odd years. These games provide a list of (predominantly violent) verbs that's minuscule in comparison to the options you would face in identical real-life situations. Open-world video games bear the impossible promise-offering compelling, enjoyable open-endedness and freedom within the constraints of what is, by necessity of the medium, an extremely limited set of possible actions.