Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'
Straight out of "30 things I hate about your pitch", which is a great GDC talk. In that talk he has one thing that is "in the real world you can't double jump". Don't make a realistic setting that is realistic just because.