Remember the good old days when video games just dumped you into the world with no explanation and a silent expectation that you’d figure it out? Sure, you’d spend hours running into walls and accidentally triggering boss fights, but it was your journey. Now, every game begins with a tutorial so detailed it feels like the developers are questioning your ability to function as a human being.
Game tutorials aren’t here to help—they’re here to remind you that, apparently, you’re too dumb to play the very game you just bought.
The Handholding Epidemic
Modern tutorials start with the basics, but they don’t stop there. “Press W to move forward,” they tell you, as though you’ve never touched a keyboard in your life. “Use the right stick to look around,” they add, because clearly, you’ve forgotten how cameras work.
Then come the insults disguised as tips:
- “Hold X to sprint.” Thanks, game. I was planning to crawl at a snail’s pace through this battlefield.
- “Your health is low. Try not to die.” Oh, really? I thought I’d just bleed out for fun.
By the time they explain how to jump, you’re wondering if this game is for adults or if you accidentally downloaded Baby’s First FPS.
When Tutorials Go Too Far
Some tutorials don’t just insult your intelligence—they actively ruin the game. Case in point: any stealth game where the tutorial loudly tells you how to sneak, inevitably alerting the guards. “Press C to crouch,” the game whispers, right before your character trips an alarm and triggers a cinematic of your capture.
And don’t even get me started on games that stop you mid-combat to explain mechanics you’ve already figured out. Nothing breaks immersion like a giant “Press F to pay respects” pop-up while you’re dodging enemy fire.
The Tutorial Paradox
Ironically, tutorials aren’t even helpful when you need them. Have you ever tried to follow a crafting tutorial in a survival game? They spend ten minutes explaining how to make a stick, then abandon you when it’s time to build a shelter. “Figure it out,” they say, as wolves close in and night falls.
Or take strategy games, where tutorials teach you the absolute basics but leave out the part where you accidentally bankrupt your kingdom in the first five turns. Thanks for explaining how to click things, Civilization. Too bad you didn’t warn me not to declare war on France before inventing swords.
A Modest Proposal: Bring Back Mystery
Here’s a radical idea: stop with the handholding. Drop us into the game with nothing but a vague sense of purpose and a map that looks like it was drawn by a toddler. Let us fail spectacularly. Let us die repeatedly because we didn’t realize fire hurts.
Gamers are resourceful. We’ll figure it out—or we’ll rage quit and Google it, which is basically the same thing.
The Verdict
Game tutorials aren’t about teaching—they’re about control. Developers don’t trust us to learn on our own, so they micromanage our every move. But in their quest to make games “accessible,” they’ve stripped away the joy of discovery.
So the next time a game tells me how to jump, I’m going to throw myself off the nearest cliff—not because I’m bad at the game, but because I’m bad at being patronized.
Let us fail. Let us learn. And for the love of all that is pixelated, stop telling me how to move forward. I’ve been doing it my whole life.