Death Stranding proved my long standing belief that the sprint button in games did not serve the purpose of getting people from A to B faster but instead served the purpose of making moving from A to B a more engaging task by having a resource meter to manage and think about. However small this addition it improves the process of moving from A to B, in much the same way that a stamina system for climbing improves staring at a wall in Breath of the Wild and makes it bearable with a dash mechanic.

Death Stranding takes that whole concept and expands it immensely. I expect all of Kojima's games to build off of the building blocks that he constructs too as he'll be able to dip into his older code. So by making a fundamental mechanic more interesting now, it should be more interesting in all his future games as well. A lot of how it works should just be a basic standard of movement in all games. It needs more polish for some of the jank but it's excellent.