The Right (And Wrong) Ways Developers Teach Us To Play Their Games

It’s often said that people make a lasting judgment of someone within the first five minutes of meeting them. This adage is just as relevant in interpersonal communication as it is in video games. How a game settles players into its world often informs whether that person wants to continue playing.

First impressions are important, so here’s a simple list of ways video game tutorials can better hold our attention while they teach us how to play.

DO: Let the player discover the controls for themselves
Too often games elaborately explain their every control from the outset. Some tutorials are too afraid to let the player try and fail, and fewer still actually let the player test drive the controls for themselves.

This is why the first level of The Force Unleashed is one of my favorite video game openings. Instead of constantly pausing the action to incrementally explain the basics of attacking, Force leaping, and saber-throwing, the player gets thrown right into the action as the exceedingly badass Darth Vader.

Since you start out so powerful, it gives the player more freedom to experiment with the game’s different Force abilities and lightsaber combos. Massacring hordes of Stormtroopers and Wookiees sounds cruel, but that kind of insane action is exactly what The Force Unleashed is about. Once you begin playing as Starkiller, you’re already familiar with the controls, and have received a taste of the all-powerful lightsaber-wielder you will ultimately become. 

DON’T: Interrupt the action just to explain obvious controls
While every game may be someone’s first game, some of the obvious controls and mechanics should be discovered through trial-and-error, rather than a heavy-handed tutorial.

If your game is an FPS with the same controller layout as Call of Duty, a boot camp mission explaining how to aim down sights, crouch, and invert your camera is a waste of time (Titanfall, Modern Warfare 2, etc.). In the same vein, don’t pause the game just to notify players of obvious mechanics, like what a grenade indicator is, or that a mini-map can help you spot enemies or objectives. Thanks for the heads-up, but needless hand-holding breaks the immersion and reminds you you’re playing a video game.

DO: Pace the story appropriately and build anticipation 
RPGs and open-world games need to properly introduce their worlds in order for any sense scale to be conveyed. Let us feel comfortable in our tiny corner of the map, and then blow our minds by unveiling your large and intimidating game scope. It adds a feeling of progression beyond just, “there are missions on this part of the map now.”

Grand Theft Auto IV does this brilliantly. The game opens with protagonist Niko Bellic immigrating to Liberty City to live with his cousin Roman, who has (according to himself) become a made man. In the dialogue-heavy first mission of GTA IV, it becomes obvious to the player that Roman’s description of his life in America has been a false promise. Niko comes to the United States, only to realize that the American dream is much more complicated and illusive than was promised, in a metaphor that perfectly mirrors the thematic arc of the rest of the game.

The next few hours are perfectly paced, with the scale kept small. Getting a pistol feels like a genuine accomplishment. Once the map does finally open up beyond Broker, it feels earned. It makes Liberty City seem that much more daunting and exciting to explore, which is why GTA IV is such an expertly crafted sandbox.

DON’T: Dump exposition and tease a narrative the player has no attachment to
Some games make the wrong assumption that players are invested in their story from the start. If it’s a character we don’t know about, why does it matter what’s happening to their family, their country, or their universe?

Kingdom Hearts II is particularly guilty of this. Following a conclusive ending to the original Kingdom Hearts, the following game, Chain of Memories, leaves Sora incapacitated, recovering his lost memories to continue his search for Riku and King Mickey. But instead of picking up at a point where players are familiar, Kingdom Hearts II cold-opens with the convoluted Roxas subplot.

For the next two hours, the game teases the player with scenes containing the unfamiliar characters of DiZ and Organization XIII, without any context or explanation. Since players don’t understand that what they’re watching connects with the story they know, these scenes are meaningless to them, making it difficult to process and remember what’s happening. If the player mentally checks out during those first few scenes and misses a critical component of the story, they could go the entire game feeling lost and irritated.

DO: Organically incorporate multiplayer mechanics into story mode
This is something fighting games still don’t always get right. It’s impossible for games designed for multiplayer to have comprehensive tutorials to prepare players for online, because human opponents are unpredictable. While designing an A.I. with a perfect human consciousness is off the table, forcing the player to organically discover these techniques for themselves is another option.

Take Street Fighter, for example. When playing against another human, cross-ups are attacks that are meant to look like they must be guarded from the front, but their hit box actually hits the opponent from behind, causing them to get hit. This is one way to get damage by tricking your opponent through human error. To teach that, fighting games should create a boss in story mode that can only be hit from behind. This can be translated to other genres as well, in order to teach newcomers the “language” of multiplayer matches that are normally only available through secondhand YouTube walkthroughs.

DON'T: Throw the kitchen sink at the player
There’s nothing wrong with games that have multiple mechanics to juggle; long RPGs thrive on complexity to stay interesting. But to maintain that interest, it requires careful pacing. Bombarding the player right off the bat with things to worry about and manage often means that nonessential mechanics get ignored for the rest of the game.

This was one of my biggest turn-offs with The Witcher 3. Right out the gate I was introduced to the game’s complex alchemy, mutagen, and crafting systems. Why should I gather ingredients if I can just meditate whenever and refill my potions? I’m not even sure what makes a good weapon, so why should I pay someone else to fix the one I have? What is a mutagen and why should I bother fussing with it, anyway? I’m not saying there aren’t good answers to these questions, but I’d only just started the game, so I didn’t understand why those features mattered.

Compare that to Persona 5, which sprinkles new mechanics every hour or so. You get used to how a feature works before the game builds on it. That way, you feel in command of every aspect of the game rather than stumbling through it, wondering if you’re missing out on an important part of the experience.

DO: Meet player expectations 
In many cases, players have an idea of what to expect from a game before they boot it up. While wisely subverting expectations can be effective, there’s a fine line between a clever, shocking opening and keeping the player from the good part of the game that was shown off in the trailer. Games should start with what made you want to buy the game in the first place, and expand from there.

Take a game like Metal Gear Solid 4. In the palpable hype leading up to the conclusion of Snake’s story, a majority of the footage Konami released came from the game’s opening in the Middle East. MGS fans fanaticized prowling the desert as the grizzled, chain-smoking Old Snake, and the beginning of the game delivered just that. The war-torn battleground was your sandbox as you experimented with Metal Gear Solid 4’s new toys, like the OctoCamo, the Metal Gear Mk. II, and the Solid Eye. There was also a plethora of new stealth mechanics to try out, which conveyed the idea of Snake being a highly experienced old dog who’d learned every trick in the book.

There wasn’t a 45-minute opening segment of Otacon reminding Snake how to sneak inside a training simulation. MGS 4 dives headfirst into Tactical Espionage Action, just as it should.

For more of our lists of video game Do's and Don'ts, check our lists on Remasters and Achievements.