Game I'm working on has a potential solution for this in the GDD.
Lots of areas are unexplored by the denizens due to being too dangerous past certain points. Player has an always present companion NPC along with two others that are created by other players (Dogma-like game, I guess). These NPCs that travel with you help record cartographical information as you travel, and the player references these maps by hand Far Cry 2 style. Higher quality maps can be made by turning in high quality skins, pelts, and other mapmaking materials appropriate for the time.
When the player discovers a location of some significance, they can name it themselves using a sort of keyword system, similar to the Souls message system but more specific and with more options. Since these areas would have been completely unknown, all future maps would reference the names given by the player. That way the player can make the world more in their image, and feel like they have a larger impact.
Also had an idea that NPCs could speak the player's name by allowing the player to have some kind of adjustable AI voice generation parameters when inputting the name in character creation, so that even weird or uncommon names sound consistent across NPCs. Could do the same for the names that the player comes up with for areas; would actually be easier to account for since it would be a keyword system.
ash lake in 1, going down the pyramid thing to fight elana in the ds2 dlc, and untended graves in 3.
Never got that feel in 3, but in DS2 it was the Dragon Memories.
youtu.be/FxaNt-NVo1c