10 Exact Moments Video Games Should Have Ended (But Didn't)

Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is a much, much longer game than just about anyone expected, and even if you're rushing through the golden path you'll struggle to beat it in under 30 hours.

That's significantly longer than most of the games in Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series, and as wonderful a game as this is, it also represents peak indulgence on the part of a gaming auteur who has never once heard the word "restraint."

Now, Death Stranding's narrative is such an hilariously convoluted soup of themes and ideas that it isn't easy to decide precisely where it should all wrap up.

The epic boss fight with Higgs is a pretty solid possibility, though the third and final battle against a manifestation of Clifford Unger (Mads Mikkelsen) set during the Vietnam War is a far more thrilling showdown.

It's a tricky, dynamic fight with an affecting payoff, but of course the game ambles on for another three or four hours, culminating in a terrible battle against a giant whale BT and a two-hour ending that's as incoherent as it is ambitiously unhinged.

There's no denying that Kojima put a lot of work into those final hours, but that doesn't mean they weren't also completely exhausting to play through.

Closing things out with the more exciting and imaginative Clifford fight, and then stapling a more measured ending onto it, would've made more sense.

Then again, making sense hasn't ever really been Kojima's thing, has it?