It's still there, strangely enough. Most of the stuff they added over the years have been more things the player can own (base building, capital ships, settlements, bigger ships, etc.) so after you get over the initial hurdle of survival and do the main story you can get stuck in a kinda tedious "Jeff Bezos Simulator" loop of accruing more stuff just for the sake of it.
But there aren't that many hostile npcs that'll outright jump you (as the player, you basically have to initiate combat most of the time, and running away is always viable), so deciding to drop everything and beeline to the galactic core to see the sights is always an option.
Funnily enough, the exact problem you're describing is what I would say happened to Sea of Thieves, where at launch it could be played as a chill out nautical simulator, but now you can't move 5 feet without getting jumped by wildlife and npc ships.