: Yeah, dying in mid-air while falling never made physical sense of course. It
: would be interesting to know the full reasoning for settling on that
: policy.

I assume it was the simplest solution to resolving possible edge cases of player behavior? Seems like "die after X seconds" (is it time or just velocity?) is simpler than coding in a bunch of death areas for stuff like AOTCR. The bridge descent likely wouldn't work then if they'd went through the effort to prevent players from getting down by more tailored means.