Valhalla feels emptier than Odyssey?

I know I'm late to the party but I just finished Odyssey's main story a few days ago then started playing Valhalla for the first time. I have about 12 hours or so of playtime so far and I have to say, does England feel quite empty or is that just me?

- Everything is sooooo far away from each other. Here's a bunch of empty space with a few sparkly rocks along the way so you can stop every few meters to smash em.

-Military camps feel pointless to clear out. Here's 20 silver and a broken bow for your troubles.

-The Order members are pretty alright, less confusing than the Cult members in terms of finding them. I don't really know what's the motivation to kill them tho so their death moments aren't that impactful. Zealots are heavily nerfed Mercenaries and you can't change my mind on that.

- Treasures are quite fun to go looking for on Pathfinder but they're so far way from each other and there's so few of them. I think I've looted most of the places I've been to so there's a lot of X's on my map now.

- Mysteries are a hit or miss sometimes. Rewards aren't that great for 10-15 mins of my time.

- I don't know if there's legendary animals like in Odyssey but I did accidentally find one of Ragnar's Drengr. That was a fun experience.

- Raids are pretty eh, 15 mins of smashing some poor blokes heads on a hatchet does get tiresome.

- I heard there was fishing in this game but I haven't built the fishing hut yet.

Is there no repeatable but worthwhile activity to do (Bounties & Contracts in Odyssey, random encounters from NPC's in the middle of nowhere asking for help, unmarked camps etc.) in Valhalla or am i still too early in the game, I already helped the Ragnarssons at Ledecestrescire and now I have to go help some filthy Saxon get married to one of the Danes in East Anglia.

I'm tempted to go back to Odyssey because it feels a little bit more alive compared to Valhalla. Like in Odyssey, I always get sidetracked by random stuff that goes on around the world while travelling. Something like the Fallout games, I have yet to experience that in Valhalla naturally. I either have to look for it myself or I stumble upon it during a mission.