How Death Stranding Should Have Ended

5. Lose That Dragged Out Mountain Sequence

Ask around and you'll quickly stumble upon the one part of the game that even its most ardent defenders thought was a slog: The snowy mountains.

I'll get to story stuff soon enough, but this sequence - coming right when it feels like things are escalating and the story is climaxing - stops everything stone dead.

Not only are you tasked with arbitrarily carrying items to multiple points on the same long distance triangle of locations, but Sam starts to move like he's in treacle. Plodging through knee-high snow, one lumbering footstep at a time, the game then has the gall to throw faster item degradation at you, AND you'll be trekking through various pockets of B.T.s, who will likely attack and ruin things further.

Clearly set up to test you as an ultra hard final third begins, it really overstays its welcome, severs the pacing and buildup, and worst of all, put thousands of players off continuing.

Tighten this part up, make it more cutscene heavy. Ditch the repetitive, "I forgot, I need one more item!" requests from these characters, and keep everything moving.