[Harmohit]

In my opinion, the way Subnautica motivates is players to play is through a natural sense of exploration - it wants you to think, "This is such a cool planet, I want to explore it" and not "What is the most efficient way of making these numbers/progress bars on the screen go up."

I totally understand what you mean though. I passed on Dark Souls on my first try due to the lack of a specific goal but it is my favourite game of all time now.