Gears of War, GoW 2, GoW 3, Bioshock Infinite, Fallout 3, Portal

Within video games, tutorials are necessary to the gameplay portion of the narrative, but often dissociating in their stark disconnect from the actual narrative; see an example (and perfect parody) of a poor tutorial here.  At their core, games require tutorials to teach players how to effectively navigate the world, save the world, how to play the game.  However, by so explicitly shoving that information at the player, tutorials can render the player bored, overwhelmed, or otherwise not wanting to move forward in the narrative.  With such narrative dissociation running rampant on both spectra, it’s clear that “many games rely on a tutorial system that fails to take into consideration the experience of the player.” (White, 2012) Tutorials act as a gameplay prologue, setting up what the player needs to advance the narrative, but a poorly-done prologue can prevent or dissuade a player from wanting anything to do with the story at hand.  Enter: effective, immersing tutorials.

Off the bat, the amount and scope of a tutorial often depends on the gametype.  Think of many first-person shooters, from approximately 2007 onward, Call of Duty chief among them.  First-person war shooters all feel and operate very similarly, so moving from one to another can be fairly seamless, controlling similarly to each other.  Thus, as newer games employ the same playstyles as older games, the newer games’ tutorials begin to lighten, no longer covering all mechanics; players are used to those by all the similar games they’ve played.  Essentially, games can take the chance of players knowing how to operate in-world, given similar games, and save players the time of moving through a tutorial level or area, and that can prevent any risk of tutorial-scare touched on earlier.

Gears of War and Gears of War 2 (2006, 2008) both start on the right foot, offering the tutorial as an optional path in the beginning: players can pursue the tutorial if they are unfamiliar with the style of Gears, or skip it if they are familiar with the gameplay.  Gears of War 3 (2011) forgoes the explicit tutorial in exchange for small pop-ups in-game; other than blocking a small portion of the screen, they do nothing to interrupt the flow of gameplay, and help reintroduce players to the mechanics they might otherwise be rusty with.  With Gears and Gears 2, having optional sub-mission tutorials served as an easy access to the necessary gameplay knowledge, but something just as easy to skirt around if it was deemed unnecessary.

Bioshock Infinite (2013) doesn’t necessarily lead with the tutorial.  The entire first half-hour or so of game is the player-character exploring the stratospheric city of Columbia, learning basic controls simply by doing (i.e., walking, looking, picking up, etc.).  A ways into their exploration, they happen on the Fairgrounds, where, through doing, not being instructed, players can acquire practice with the Vigor mechanics and handling of basic firearms.  Again, the practice sections are entirely optional, but the lure of prizes for a job well done entice many players to both try the practices out and perfect their use before moving on.

Fallout 3 (2008) actually has your character grow up, starting from your birth up to your nineteenth birthday and subsequent runaway from their underground-vault home, and that serves as the player’s tutorial.  They learn to walk and interact with objects as a stumbling toddler, different ways to speak and how to use the targeting-combat system at their tenth birthday party, and a culmination of all skills in the character’s escape from the vault.  In this case, the tutorial covers serves as both a teaching and learning tool for the player and a narrative device, not only teaching the skills to progress, but investing the player in the world that they are a part of.

Thinking throughout a game experience, there are inevitably loading screens: screens that come up between major areas in-game, after characters die, as they enter sub-areas like stores, and so on.  Many games use these screens as ongoing tutorials, sharing short tips and control instructions for players, a method of ongoing tutoring for the players.  All kinds of gametypes employed this method, from shooters to role-playing games and beyond. 

Portal (2007) is a unique example of tutorial in-game in that, as has been noted in Extra Credits Easy Games, “Portal is a game that is 80% tutorial.” (Floyd & Portnow, 2010) Anyone familiar with Portal can jump ahead, but for those unfamiliar: Portal introduced a novel mode of gameplay, employing a portal mechanic that opens up a spatial bridge between two portals, which can be fired from a ‘portal gun,’ in order to solve physical puzzles and proceed in the game.  This illustrates the gameplay in question, especially once players have a grasp of the mechanics.

Needless to say, there a million things one can do with a portal gun, and Portal recognizes this.  Therein lies the long tutorial: the game introduces these elements to the player piece by piece, laying the mechanical foundations first and foremost, then scaffolding with difficult maneuvers and tricks.  By the time the tutorial ends and players are thrust into the rest of the game, Portal is approximately 65% completed.  Even with this, Portal continues to teach players new skills that they will need going forward, right up until the final combat encounter.  The entire game serves to teach the player, one way or another.

So, the main thing is that games must be played in order to progress.  In order to play, one must know how, hence, tutorials.  But while they serve as a resource for players to learn about the gameplay, they can just as easily serve as a narrative device outside of their skill transference.  Tutorials can empower players, showing them skills and controls they may not have considered otherwise and then giving them opportunities to experiment with them; how to handle grenades, combo moves, that sort of thing.  They can serve to enhance the narrative in particular ways: Fallout 3’s ‘formative years’ give a glimpse of Vault-life and how the player-character has been growing up; Bioshock Infinite’s Fairgrounds lay out the values and culture of Columbia.  All things considered, a good tutorial will teach the player the necessary skills to proceed and simultaneously submerge them in the new world they’re to enter: a narrative technique that can’t be imitated in other mediums.