The Tutorials Tutorial: The 3D Fallouts

War, War never changes.

Nothing and nothing, but nothing, is as important to the accessibility and adoption of any game with aspirations on mainstream appeal, as those beginning few hours. I'm talking introduction, tutorial and launching off points. If that start of the game doesn't manage to grab, intrigue or encourage the player than they just aren't going to take the time to stick around until the twilight hours for the super special mind-blower climax which totally redeems the whole experience. I mean... unless they happen to be me, because I'm a weirdo like that, but it's probably not wise to assume every consumer is as frivolous with their freetime as myself. And in my mind what makes that beginning hour or so particularly tricky, as well as important, is that it's when the designers need to both hook you into the early narrative as well as arm you with that fundamental knowledge you're going to need in order to carry you through the rest of your play experience. It's a balancing act of information and teaching, and one developer who have nailed this down to a fine art in my opinion, is Bethesda.

Contrary to their cleverly engrained action set piece tutorial intro from Skyrim, Fallout 3 is iconically slower paced and more methodical, and that's because it was elevated through the simply ingenious framing device of the player literally experiencing the life of their characters stretching from birth to death. (Well, in the vanilla version of the game it would be birth to death. 'Broken Steel' borked the neatness of that.) And so, quite literally, the game can take you through every single tutorial they have to offer and merely disguise it as another scene of you growing up. Of course, being professionals, Bethesda weren't that obvious with their implementations, and thus they did endeavour to ensure that every scene of the Vault Dweller's childhood was fuelled with narrative purpose too, but in concept alone the whole 'early years in the vault' has to be one of the most slam dunk marriages of narrative and functional tutorial in all of gaming and I just want to gush about it for a bit.

So like I alluded, shortly after being introduced to the world of Fallout 3 by the iconic narration of Ron Pearlman, the player is immediately thrown into the most immersive scenario one could possible expect from a first person RPG: their own birth. Functionally it's all rather straight-forward, you get popped out and then design how your adult self will eventually look through the use of hand-wavy science-magic something (with the game even taking count of your ethnicity so it can dub your Liam Neeson-voiced father with that same race) The next glimpse comes from the toddler years, and it's here where the smart design starts to really shine. So like every single game under the sun, Fallout 3 teaches the player how to move. (I know: someone would complain if games stopped doing this eventually, but sometimes it makes me wonder what the point of standardised control schemes even is.) But then you're taught how to pick-up and throw toys out of your toybox, showing off the physics engine and teaching the player of this functionally perfunctory, but still pretty fun, mechanic. (Every Scrolls-Out player has spent a morbid minute playing with the physics of a corpse they recently made.)

Then we have the actual building of the player's stat sheet integrated into the immersive setting of the game! (I don't know if I'm adequately displaying how cool I find that.) The player reads a children's book which rudimentarily explains the relevance of each stat before asking the player to lay their stat point spread, that's character creation effort I've never seen a CRPG put in! It carries over to the next snapshot of life too, with the game showing the player their young kid years. Here you're introduced to the Pipboy, the concept of branching dialogue trees and basic consequences and even a little bit of shooting. You're getting how this works by now, right? Bethesda feed you formative character scenes whilst slotting in tutorials to systems or game concepts wherever they might naturally fit. It's a total masterclass of immersive introduction and the designers don't make it feel like the narrative has slowed down for lessons in the slightest. (I actually think it does a better job than Skyrim at maintaining a consistent momentum.)

New Vegas, on the otherhand, is seemingly intentionally barebones by comparison. You have the same maintained precedent, of character sheet building wrapped into the immersion of the world, but it's less intertwined in the momentum of the moment. You know immediately when you're in a tutorial area and thankfully don't have to wait too long before you're let loose. As for gameplay tutorials... well the game teaches you how to move. And... that's about it. Yeah, New Vegas is a game that relies on it's similarity to Fallout 3, and the knowledge of that largely-shared audience, to justify cutting back almost totally on the tutorials. All of New Vegas' gameplay tutorials are optional and mostly geared to introducing players to New Vegas specific mechanics, rather than teaching the basics. This has the benefit of giving the player more early freedom, but the drawback of making each 'tutorial area' stick out like a sore, momentum-halting, thumb. Still, it works perfectly fine for a first playthrough and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

Fallout 4 is a curious one, because having been made after Skyrim, you can see the ways in which Bethesda wanted to try and marry the two styles of Skyrim's intro and Fallout 3's. You have the contextually-sound character creation mixed with the immediately core-plot-relevant set pieces, high on the adrenaline and excitement, to try and teach-the-player in the action. Escaping Vault 111 is basically Fallout 4's version of Helgen, with more of a dynamic twist to the way systems are introduced rather than having an instructor standing over your shoulder literally telling you what to do. There are terminals to hack, locks to pick, and even one higher level closet with a powerful weapon inside that exists just to show you the limitations of your exploration at this early level so you know the sorts of rewards you're working towards.

Of course there is no single 'right way' to introduce these game as beyond sharing the same world and genre, they're all vastly different in the scopes of their regions, stories, and themes; but that's the kind of crappy toeing-the-line answer that'll net you decent marks during a Secondary School English exam. It's much more fun to pick a blanket favourite out of the 3D Fallout games, which leads me to comparing benefits. Fallout 3 has a tutorial that is immersively baked-in to the early game in an unmatchable way, however that does equate to a pretty bloated first hour of tutorial and introduction. Fallout New Vegas is hands-off and largely optional, but the tutorial sections stick out so much you'll probably never opt to endure them again on repeat playthroughs. Fallout 4's is exciting, integrated and forward moving for the plot, however it toes the divide between too long and too frustrating to go through again willingly. Ultimately I'd have to go with my main man Fallout New Vegas on this one, purely because I value replayability so highly, even if I think Fallout 3's intro is a freakin' masterpiece.

The whole point of a well crafted tutorial is the way in which it props up accessibility, for as many people as possible to engage with and enjoy the game. But so many ingredients go into the recipe of 'accessibility', clarity, brevity, optionals, integration, that the idea of hitting perfection is nigh on impossible. But then, perfection is forever an impossibility, is it not? That's what makes life so fun! Bethesda does have this type of interactive tutorial that resonates so clear and deeply with my personal perception of what makes a good tutorial, however I looked forward to being presently schooled by other approaches to this integral game design step when I soon expand my horizons into other sorts of games. And as we explore ever deeper, I want you to ponder, just as I do, how the art of the tutorial comes together to create that ideal tee-in to the games that we love.