Eh that's easy to fake, if it's a tropical island, you just make it hot and humid, then limit the fogging distance
It'd still be dumb, but relatively speaking, it sort of works I guess.
Speaking from experience with Stalker games, where even with more advanced mods like Misery the draw distance is shorter than even that, if balanced right, it doesn't take away from immersion. You just have to make sure it's managed right in the game.
And that's the thing, I'm not really interested in the technological side of it, what I want to see is a survival game with a good design. "Open-world "survival"" games are a dime a dozen these days, but it ain't technology or draw distance that's holding most of them back from being any good...