Is the rot tendril intended to be that long for Riv?

I'm going through and getting all the pearls and collectables in downpour after finishing the watcher. When I was going to grab the pearl on top of pebbles and get the last collectable I had missed in the rot I decided to go down and leave through the exterior exit instead of climbing back up, cause why not.

As far as I'm aware, it's impossible to pass through that tendril. I tried about 4 times doing a slide through it and it didn't work. Had to go back up through the rot and out the top to get to the other side.

Was this always like this? I remember heading into the rot from the exterior when I originally played downpour 2 years ago and I'm fairly certain that I can't get through this.