They didn't want you to focus so much on carrying around health packs etc ... and wanted you to have a more fluid fight sequence play out - especially as reinforcements seem to arrive in greater numbers than in previous games.

The world does seem larger, but not necessarily more open - Rome, Constantinople in the previous games both were very open and you could travel virtually anywhere (with exceptions of inside most buildings). This game just adds more layers to it - and gives more wilderness and rural areas to explore on top of the major city-scapes.

I wonder what the amount of square footage is between the past 2 games and this one ...

-Roon