I don't know about you, but for me there's nothing more immersion-breaking than being reminded your sense of control is just an illusion. Other games have taken that concept even further, wresting control away from the player entirely in order to highlight an explosion or showcase physics in action as a building collapses in on itself.īy severing the player's connection with their avatar, these moments reinforce the fact that you're not in control, that you're only following a path someone else laid out for you. The Gears of War series introduced the idea of "points of interest," scripted events that pluck the player from the moment so they can stare impotently at a story beat. The Call of Duty campaigns are regularly referred to as corridor shooters, funnelling players through scripted sequence after scripted sequence and offering little to no agency over direction or pacing - players can't even open doors on their own, instead having to wait for AI companions to do it for them. Unfortunately, this trend of underestimating the competence of players isn't limited to tutorials. It seems foolish that for all the advances games have made, there is no established convention for bypassing the boot-camp overtures and getting straight into the action, for both the veteran gamer and those of us who prefer to wing it rather than absorb the manual. For first-time gamers, these directions might be useful, but for the vast majority of players, they're just irritating. The tutorial is nigh ubiquitous and often insufferably droll: I groan every time I'm forced to trudge through another unskippable diatribe on the mechanics of analogue camera control. Rare is the game these days that refuses to hold your hand. Xeodrifter treads the line between being empowering and frustrating, but which side does it end up on?
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