Still, there is a difference between a day 1 patch fixing a lot of things, vs the game not even installing (e.g. I remember in 2019 when COD NW xbox disc was just a few gigs, and everything needed to be downloaded)

Edit: now I actually read the article, for me this seems like online validation is needed (not a complete online install). When I got Horizon FW a few days earlier, I managed to install and play it without any issues before the release date.

Pretty much. Sometimes you can play single player games without the day one patch, but it depends on the developer.