Hi ,
Yes spot-on!
Essentially you can vary one animation in an infinite number of ways, hence less assets. These variations could be pressing objects, looking at objects, pointing, foot placement, etc.
Some studios even do the all the turnings procedurally by just manipulating a forward walking animation.
There are more thinks that you can do on top, for example manipulate centre of mass to auto balance or bend forward on a climb walk.
There are some examples here on modification of poses via IKinema. Grey character is the input animation (or a fixed pose).