YaGramps: Au contraire- If they have to resort to using monsters to tell a story, then their game is already uninteresting, because you don't need monsters to tell a great adventure story!
Ancient-Red-Dragon: How so?
So then the story will be they find nothing but landscapes, normal animals, inanimate objects, and other run-of-the-mill humans? That will be incredibly generic & boring, if that's all the game has in it.
Humans aren't called the Most Dangerous Game for no reason- they're the most intelligent and dynamic predators that we know of. By contrast, fictional monsters all seem to have that same clearly-designed-by-a-character-designer look that takes you out of the story. And what's wrong with natural landscapes? Earth is spectacular! Just watch Lawrence of Arabia or Bridge on the River Kwai and tell me that they seem 'generic.'