8. Back to the Hospital!? WTF?!
This isn't an exclusive problem of GTA V (as I imagine it during this nightmare) but one that I've had with the entire series that I am certain will continue into the latest installment: when you die on a mission, why, o' why must you respawn at a #@!$ing hospital, generally miles away from where you need to be to continue your progress? I'd say it's in keeping with the series preference for concealing the game mechanics and keeping you immersed ("you didn't die: you were injured and now you're out of hospital") and I respect that. But it is completely infuriating, especially when you come upon extremely difficult missions. It's zero fun driving back to where you've got to be when the game could just dispense with the whole charade and allow you to restart the mission from a convenient checkpoint. Yes, I understand that games used to take you right the way back to beginning when you ran out of lives, but this isn't 1991 and I'm not playing Sonic the Hedgehog. For a studio that seems to get so much right, this is a bafflingly creaky and outmoded piece of design. Especially as they are breaking the immersion anyway: why should I be released from hospital after being blown up by a helicopter, which destroyed me to halt my civilian-murdering rampage through the city centre? It just doesn't fly, man.