The Tutorials Tutorial: Skyrim

 Hey you, you're finally awake!

So after buying it on launch day and juggling it around three separate hardrives in order to make room for the dozens of other games I had scheduled to play, I've finally come around to playing Skyrim Anniversary Edition. Yes, that's because I was waiting for the Skyrim Script Extender 64 version to hit a stable state so that I could play with a full playthrough of mods and so start my- I dunno, hundredth Skyrim playthrough? It might literally be in the triple digital now, I've played this game a ton. Which is why it seems so very strange that I've hardly ever spoken about it on this blog, but that's because so many other titles have dominated my mind over these part two years and so I've largely gone Skyrim free for a bit. But it's time to break that sobriety for a few decent weeks as I jump in once more and, rediscover a lot of mods that have been vastly updated! But what I want to talk about today isn't at all related to mods, but the most vanilla part of a vanilla experience; the tutorial.

The intro for Skyrim is a hotly contested topic among the community in Skyrim, in that everybody else in the world thinks it's bad, and I disagree. Okay that's not fair, they say it's too long; but maybe I've just endured so many poorly thought-out mindnumbing, text-box heavy, tutorials in my life that this iteration feels perfectly acceptable and even good to me. But it just won't do to say that the game makes me feel this, what quantifiable value can be attributed to a feeling? So I've decided to go over the specific techniques and tools that Bethesda employed to construct, what I think to be, an intuitive and fun tutorial section that stretches just as long as it needs to, tells the player all they'll need to know, and then leads them out into the freeform adventure with nothing but a few loose story threads to pull on and a dream of wild adventure.

It's starts with that intro, and name me a more iconic conversation. It doesn't technically have anything to do with the tutorial, but I've memorised that intro sequence top to bottom so I need to at least mention it. Waking up to the sounds of Skyrim's wilderness as Jeremy Soule's suite kicks in, looking up and seeing that icon blazon across the screen is unforgettable, it honestly gives me unending chills everytime. For a fantasy game, to have the courage not start with narration (even narration by Patrick Stewart) can be a double-edged sword, it feels refreshing, but it could easily feel flat and dull for the lack of an exciting chunk of initial world building, usually instrumental to getting a fresh user pumped. But with the history of the series to lean on, Skyrim just rolls us in a prison wagon towards our adventure and so can experience the world firsthand, without having to endure being told about it. It's hard to put in to words how much I adore the carriage at the beginning, even on the times that the mod-load gets heavy and the wagon start doing full cartwheels and spinning off up the mountains.

From the moment you get control of your character directly before (Spoilers) a great big F-off Dragon named Alduin flies down to interrupt your execution, the game is in tutorial mode. You're told the key to run and, in a design philosophy understood by most every horror game developer today, you're immediately given the compunction to run; so that the big dragon doesn't come and eat you. This first set-piece section of the game is full of moments like this. Having the player jump to the burning Inn so they can progress in their escape, (teaching us jumping) crouching in order to avoid Alduin's attention when he lands on the wall above you (even though that moment is purely aesthetic, it makes for a teachable moment) and even an introduction to the concept of multiple quest paths with your two companions splitting off, Ralof heading one way and Hadvar going another. This intro section also serves as great playable cinematic, sweeping you away with  quickly paced action whilst cleverly throwing snippets of tutorial systems at you the very second that they'll apply to the situaiton. And to think that all of this is simply a stage to teach you basic movement; Skyrim really did go above and beyond for this one. (And it's tons better than Oblivion's 'walk around your cell with instructions' equivalent.)

Once inside Helgen Keep we're treated to a more traditional, explain system then let the player take their time to do it, style of tutorial but once again it never once shifts from the framing device of finding your way to escaping the crumbling dragon-besieged keep whilst learning how to do so. You're taught how to loot, and the game even offers you the option of using the handy new 'equip from inventory' option available to you. Then comes the infomation that flows naturally, combat, searching containers, the basics. Where the clever hand-of-guidance nudges it's way back into the scenario is through the torture chambers wherein we're directed to the lockpicking minigame and basic spell book learning and then usage. But some of the concepts introduced here border on advanced too, with the immediate next little brawl featuring two archers who are purposefully spawned atop a slick of flammable oil with you being recently given a flame spell. The game doesn't explicitly spell this one out for you, but it leaves the tools there for you to stumble across something cool if you're lucky.

The dungeon area that is laid out for this whole section, Helgen Keep, is actually treated like a proper crawl as well, without holding back in order to be more straightforward and completely basic, so that players can build a decent idea of what to expect from the rest of this game. Corners and crannies are stuffed with little coin pouches and general rewards for those who want to break off the beaten path and explore, showing us how the level design will treat exploration from then on. Last of all there's the stealthing tutorial, tucked within another real-world example, as you have a sleeping bear you can either sneak past or get an easy stealth hit off on before he can react. Now from here the game doesn't just stop teaching you, but it provides total freedom to either continue along the paved path and learn a bit more or strike out on your own if you feel like the total Dragon-slaying badass already.

All of these are the elements that come together to make, in my opinion, a beautifully integrated and intuitive tutorial that both introduces and familiarises the player to the game with an immersive presentation that stands the test of time in design. Now of course that doesn't mean this is the bar one must meet in order to make a decent tutorial, I just think this is a great example of one. Which, again, doesn't mean that it's perfect. There's no option to skip the tutorial and it does go on for about twenty minutes, but as an introduction to both the game and the world I find that first dungeon thematically serviceable and mechanically ideal. Seeing how other games handle their tutorial sections is really where we're going to be able to drawn and contrast, and I expect to be able to use Skyrim as a benchmark to call back to on some later dives. So I very much intend to start a little series of exploring introductions in games and their tutorials to see the pros, the cons, and maybe dissect a little bit about the creative process behind making the most perfect tutorial section of any game ever. (Ain't that the dream?)