Game tutorials should be easily skipped. Why is that so hard?
Between work, sleep, errands, and other demands, the average gamer doesn't have as many hours as they'd like for their hobby. When you finally get the time, there's a nearly endless bounty available: ambitious narratives, professional voice acting, character customization, adaptive simulations, deep lore, and more.
This is great, but please, I beg you: Let me skip ahead. Starting a game I've already played once before, or would otherwise be familiar with, only to hit cutscenes, tutorials, and low-risk levels meant to train you—just stop. I've halted a number of games, games I would otherwise enjoy, because of their outsize preambles. It's not an entirely new problem, but I can't believe it hasn't been worked through yet.
Most cutscenes offer a way to skip them. I'm looking for similar graciousness for everything else a game mandates that is not directly related to its actual gameplay or core loop. When I have the time to play a game that won't be new to me, I don't want to play the "Hold B to crouch" tutorial level or slowly unlock powers or areas. I've got one, maybe one and a half hours between dinner clean-up and a proper bedtime and a few spare hours on the weekends. Let's get on with it.
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