You get contribution points that you use to link nodes (camps) together and own houses in towns, you can set up the houses in towns to be npc barracks or workshops so that they do crafting for you, you can also make the npcs travel to nodes that have gathering nodes attached to them to get resources for you. (You can also own like 5 houses for yourself)
You also need to connect nodes together to do the trading system, to sell for the full amount the place you got the item and the place you're trying to sell at need to be connected. The world is also pretty large with no loading screens and no fast travel.
Also It has boats. And horses and donkeys. And you can level up, tame, breed horses and fight on horse back.
It's got action combat (bit less than B&S though) and a parkour system.