Breath of the Wild showed those janky Western AAA open world games how it's done.

Are you kidding? There are N64 games that feel more modern than Skyrim (aside from visuals of course). 

The OP asked for games that modernized their genre. For me that entails bringing about a broad change in its genre. It's not enough to be a lone standout game - there has to be effects seen throughout the rest of the genre. There were smartphones before the iPhone, but the iPhone modernized the phone industry, not the Nokia N95 or whatever.

I don't really understand this.  Isn't that just the way you play?  I explored every corner of Skyrim while mostly ignoring quests and I know a lot of other people play that way, as well.

As for "revolution", I hope not.  I hope Zelda continues to do its own thing and games like Skyrim continue to their own thing.  They have a lot of inherent differences.  I don't want to lose the freedom I love in Elder Scrolls games.

I'm replaying Skyrim in VR atm and going the same way about it as BotW. I'm roaming around exploring every thing that pops up on the map. Both have a main quest that's largely forgettable. BotW's world is more interesting due to Zelda canon, yet you can also climb the tallest mountains in Skyrim, just don't jump of or splat! Skyrim's physics engine works quite well, nothing like shattering a skeleton with a fireball and watch all the secondary destruction as the shrapnel flies into fully loaded shelves etc. Botw however uses cartoony physics for gameplay, which is very cool, but wouldn't fit in an rpg like Skyrim.

What I found missing in BotW is exploring undergound, which Skyrim provides in droves. Skyrim does a great job at luring you on long journeys across the map by popping up some distant destination for a quest. BotW takes it one step further by simply pointing you in the direction and letting you place the marker on the map yourself. However BotW kinda ruins it with the towers to unlock and spoil the map, I choose not to unlock any towers anymore until having explored the entire section. Skyrim uses a fog of war style uncovering of the map which I prefer. Plus the growing icons on your radar for what is near while exploring work very well to find that hidden cave entrance. BotW ofcourse doesn't need that as it doesn't have caves. It does have puzzle shrines while the puzzles in Skyrim are a bit lacking. (Damn easy to spot the giant clues and levers in VR lol, must hide things better in VR)

Anyway BotW and SMO did modernize their genre in the sense that the gameplay is all split up into bite sized chunks, more suitable for handheld play. Skyrim was just a continuation of Oblivion, no drastic changes. Witcher 3 was drastic change from the mostly linear Witcher 2, but also a step back that choice didn't really make much of a difference this time. Witcher 2 had two almost entirely different campaigns based on choice which was very cool to see the other side of all the quests.

GT Sport certainly modernized their genre to plenty complaints.

Yes its been done before, but not like destiny has done. I still remember the days of diablo when we got lord of destruction a year later. It was great. Also games like path of exile wich have like 10 years improving the game and its a hell of a lot better now. But like someone said before, its not about doing it before the point of this thread. Destiny did it best and made that game relevant for 3 years after the launch was a disapointment. EA is even trying the same with Anthem.  You could say they brought it back.

While others did it before, they did not do it as well and i belive for as long as destiny did. Maybe world of warcraft but thats an mmo wich is comon. Path of exile is better but has the disavantage of being small and did not receive the spotlight and was free to play, pc only.

Man I still haven´t had the chance to try out VR.What´s the experience like in the case of Skyrim?...does it really feel like you´re 'inside the game'?

Well, first reaction is, wow this is ugly :) Yet after you get past the tutorial stage (BotW really did modernize that part) and are free to go anywhere you do feel like you're inside the game. The ability to freely look anywhere and use you hands independently to aim and pick up what you want brings it home.

It's far from perfect, it clearly was never designed with VR in mind which leads to some amusing side effects. (Like sticking your head through a wall and pulling the open door lever on the other side, or being able to fire 5 arrows per sec with a bit of practice leaving you wondering what the faster fire rate perk is going to do) Graphical glitches, low res textures and pop in stand out much more in VR, yet you get so much immersion back you don't want to go back to playing in 4K HDR with all the best mods in the world. That is, if it doesn't make you sick... Not a good game to start with in VR, but you could be among the lucky that have no issues at all with motion sickness.

It really does feel like you're entering the game. I still get that anticipation when a VR game is loading waiting for the world to appear all around me. Beam me up Scotty!

Splatoon in online shooters from the mechanics in how you move across the map to the goal The game is unique in concept and execution.
Astebreed in Shmups as they perfectly blended hack n slash with a shmup. It's a wonderful game.

Thanks for the explanation.Did you get to try RE7 in VR?....I´ve heard it´s currently the best VR experience on the PS4.