It's worth noting that this guy is talking not of old Bethesda but modern Bethesda. The writing team behind Morrowind and half of Oblivion absolutely cared about the details that only 1% of people might see. Morrowind especially is a world built around you exploring the world building. It's not about levelling up (wowee I can miss the flying fuckheads 2% less now), it was about exploring the politics and cultures in the world.

At some point, Bethesda games became about the mechanical exploration, about going over there because that looks like it might be interesting, oh it's just a cave with combat in it oh well maybe over there will be interesting.

Bethesda makes a buggy mess of a semi-passable base game and relies on free labor to turn it into a playable and interesting game.

Larian doesn’t.

There’s your difference.

I think a very good distinction is the open-worldness of Elder Scrolls. When you have a virtual map spanning hundreds of acres, all of which you can visit, means the content gets thinned out and walking/climbing/riding around turns into a grind. Not every corner of BG3 has some amazing secret stowed away but I can't think of any place I've visited so far that felt like a waste of my time.

Is it attention to detail? It’s attention to detail, isn’t it?