Most of what he talks about in the video is how the character interacts with the world. Shouldn't have anything to do with the game being an open world.
Actually, an open world, sandbox game is not going to look as nice or realistic as a linear, leveled game like Crysis 2. I was talking about some of the stuff in the beginning, about the rocks and stuff.
And, about the npcs, he has a valid complaint about the blacksmith. He's right. It's not natural enough. The blacksmith should still be paying better attention to what he's doing.
When he moves onto the woodmill scene, he talks as if he believes it is a 'cut-scene.' But, I know it has been confirmed that npcs work in the woodmill and that there are animations.