That's the thing about games like BB (or many other games in the past like TES) where you can make it repetitive if you want to but you can also completely change it up if you want based on your choices or your playstyle. Which is called having multiple character builds possible. In BB itself you can decide which stats to upgrade and that completely changes your entire combat given how different weapons scale with different stats. The sheer amount of configuration you can do with your own character and the whole gameplay which is something you find in pretty much most top titles over the years. There is no such choice in a game like gow. You HAVE to do the exact same thing every single time.
It's funny because I platinumed both GoW and BB so I obviously put good amount of time on Gow and did everything. I started NG+ because I wanted to fight the Valks again but then realised how that playthrough was gonna be exactly identical frame by frame and had no interest in it. I played NG+ of BB and just used a different weapon with the exact same character build and felt like I was doing everything for the first time.
Honestly the impression I get is that you are just after a more hardcore experience than most gamers. I fully understand what you mean by the depth of customisation in the souls games and that’s really impressive, but ultimately that does little for the repetitiveness of the actual world as you trek down the same path time and time again, facing the same enemies and ultimately the same bosses (that previously killed you). That is something that doesn’t befall an Elder Scrolls title or many games in the open world formula. That’s also ultimately the reason why I think Elden Ring appeals far more to me. All of the challenge, with very little of the same repetition (or at least I hope so).
If a game is linear then I think it has to bring to the table engaging combat (for me personally GOW and Bloodborne have this in abundance) and also engaging story/narrative (for me GOW again thrives here while Bloodborne suffers). The reason I couldn’t get into Uncharted and The Last of Us was for the opposite reason, they had interesting narrative, but I couldn’t get into the gameplay which was clunky. GOW hit the perfect blend in that regard which is why I think it resonated with so many people. Good blend between, great presentation, casual yet sexy combat, and an interesting, yet simple story. That’s a hard line to tread.
