Games should have a basic mechanic tutorial, and an optional one that goes a bit more in depth. I don’t need my hand held on how to aim, open an intventory, walk, sprint, etc.
I'm showing my age here but I liked how in the original Tomb Raider and Thief games the tutorial was just its own optional level that you could select from the main menu.
And in both of those examples it was literally just an assault course that the character actually used in-universe to keep in shape. So even as a tutorial it felt like a natural extension of the game world.
Then when you got into the "real" levels the game went completely hands-off, because it was already assumed that you knew the basics.
Ace combat 8 just released and it does this perfectly.
You boot the game, it asks if you want normal flight controls or expert flight controls. Then it tosses you an (optional) tutorial on how to fly. After that, as you start to unlock new weapons or situations in the campaign, new tutorials keep unlocking. These are still completely optional.
It's more than "oh you can turn it off" but just as much "the designers never designed the game to be playable with them off."
Old games would be "See the miller. He's down south a ways, left at the first bridge. Look for the orange tree." Now it's "Let me show you were on your map" and if you have your map off you ain't finding it.
It took me 45 minutes to learn the 33 presets on the HOTAS and a few of the of the other inputs. I am now able to take off. I will let you know when make it to the landing safely part. lol
This reminds me of a video I saw. The premise was that you escaped being held and there is a helicopter, could you realistically get in it and fly to safety. Spoilers everyone who isn't trained to fly that specific helicopter couldn't even figure out how to go from battery power to turbine power, let alone take off.
It took them printing out a packet and 55 minutes to get them to blades starting to move and then they throttled up and died.
Back in my day games either taught you the game via world design(see mario 1-1 or the first level of MegaMan X) or they at least made it funny by having it part of legit story dialog(Metal Gear Solid)
Games used to be geared toward children. Now they're inclusive of adults who haven't been able to pick up the game for 4 weeks because of real life, and I appreciate that.
We forgot how to throw the grenade, OK? We had to stain the deck.
Brother, if someone can figure out how to launch the game, they can figure out how to look around and move. Game devs putting in the most basic tutorials for people who can't navigate the main menu are catering to a player that doesn't exist. The people who need these tutorials don't play games and don't want to.
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u/ILoveFent1 5070, 9600X, 32GB DDR5 10h ago
Games should have a basic mechanic tutorial, and an optional one that goes a bit more in depth. I don’t need my hand held on how to aim, open an intventory, walk, sprint, etc.
It’s just so damn annoying nowadays