This. I also remember being overwhelmed at the Great plateau, but I’m hindsight, it’s just a simple tutorial…
It just kind of sucks because there isn’t really any guidance. The key is to talk to the old man and read the book in his hut.
At the risk of almost spoiling it… they are trying to teach you the cooking mechanism, which is quite important in the game, but has quite a learning curve.
Once you get out of the great plateau, then the game really starts and boy is it big. Just enjoy the scenery and don’t get too focussed on quickly completing it.
I kind of regret rushing the game the first play through.
Eventually I played through it multiple times. It’s really, really good. But it does take a lot of time!