I recall some discussions about the size of the world in Shenmue III... with Yu Suzuki's comment in that regard being that it will be similar to Dobuita in Shenmue I. Initially I was a little disappointed with that scale, but after re-playing it a bit I can acknowledge that there's still quite a lot to do and explore within that space. Having played most of the Yakuza games, I enjoy the density of detail in those fairly small cities - but I also appreciate the different kind of appeal of the huge, yet mostly empty, worlds of GTA.
I came across this article today that shows a map of another long-anticipated game, The Last Guardian, that fans have put together. I haven't played it, but apparently this shows all of the game world in a single view - so, spoiler alert if you haven't played it yet and intend to! Here's the link to the article, and you have to click through to see the map with annotations. But I thought it was an interesting visualization because it looks like a relatively small space that's mostly vertically-oriented, with each area offering various challenges. It's hard to gauge the scale and definitely hard to imagine the feeling of immersion from looking at a single image, but I still think it's interesting. And it's also heartening that, from what I've heard, The Last Guardian has been pretty well-received and I haven't heard complaints about it being too small or too brief of an experience. Anyone who's played The Last Guardian - what do you think of this visualization in relation to your experience of playing it?
Another game that comes to mind that has a satisfying game world that is not necessarily gigantic, but is quite beautiful, is Firewatch. My hope for Shenmue III would be that there are two or three densely detailed cities/villages, but also some sizeable wilderness areas that could probably be partially procedurally generated and will be cool to just wander around in a bit.