I'm not sure why this is, but there's a clear else: in elf.py that is doing this.
The upshot is that if you deliver an object into /platform, you can't depend on another object that lands in /platform because pkgdepend fails to find it (even though it will work).
You can see this being worked around in Xen
# pkgdepend does not know to also look for modules in the base platform
file path=platform/$(ARCH32)hvm/kernel/drv/$(ARCH64)/xpv group=sys \
pkg.depend.runpath=$PKGDEPEND_RUNPATH:/platform/$(ARCH32)pc/kernel
It seems like pkgdepend would know, if it had not been explicitly prevented from it.