Combat in Action RPGs

I was wondering how combat is done in games like Shadow of War, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3 or any other rpg? Because i can't really think of any other way then to do it with animations. I am fairly new to gameplay programming and programming in general with no Work experience yet. Just curious how its done in AAA games or even any other way people do it. Hope this is the right Forum to ask this in. Thanks for any replies!