you are exactly right about scale. i've played other games that try to do this same thing, a house with 20 rooms in it, and the developer ends up putting themselves into a difficult spot trying to include every room but stretching content very thin when they don't need to. a few basic rooms where most or all of the content will occur is better than every hallway, closet, crawlspace, doorway, and antechamber where nothing ever occurs or things could have just occurred somewhere else anyways. clicking a button to determine if a room is empty is far less immersive than entering a room and seeing it is occupied with a character and clicking on them directly to interact, even if there is no available interactions at that moment beyond "I really need to finish these calibrations, can we talk later?"