7 Most Disappointing Video Game Stories Ever

4. Death Stranding

A game whose premise is its entire narrative, Hideo Kojima's blank cheque-feeling game about human togetherness in a bleak post-apocalyptic hellscape is genuinely a very rewarding, methodic and unique game.

It's also clearly the mind of someone who had 20 different thematic ideas across the decades he was with a former company, and decided to throw them all in the mix.

Death Stranding's core plot drive surrounds chasing after main man Sam Porter Bridges' kidnapped sister, Amelie, but holy hell does it go off the rails around the midpoint. Everything from Sam being a time-travelling entity that knew Mads Mikkelsen's character to the baby on your front also being you as an infant is in here, but the big thing that feels supremely "...what" is Amelie not even existing.

Turns out she's actually an "Extinction Entity", to which there have been many others in Earth's own history. The entire game revolves around realising it's less about Sam finding his sister and recovering from an affliction that doesn't let him touch other people, and more about hugging the apocalypse itself, as a reminder that humanity is worth keeping around, because companionship is irreplaceable.

Said like that, this 50 hour noodle pile of a script has meaning, but Hideo Kojima is 100% his own worst enemy throughout.