I'm working my way through the new Tomb Raider right now and really enjoying it. The game is just a more evolved version of the original games on the PlayStation. It has all the same elements--the platforming, the puzzles, the adventure story, and the high stakes combat. They're just so much easier to see and process. The game is challenging for the right reasons, not because you literally cannot tell the difference between a platform and a giant chasm. Part of the joy of the game is the beautifully executed tutorial stages. Almost every modern action/adventure/platformer game puts how-to instructions for the controls and game mechanisms in the game itself at this point. It usually feels super-clunky and forced. It's the evil you have to go through to get to the good of the game.
Not in Tomb Raider. The new Tomb Raider has one of the most suspenseful, action-packed tutorials I've ever experienced. The opening cinematic introduces rookie archaeologist Lara Croft. Her fighting for the chance to explore the dangerous Dragon's Triangle is engaging. The most senior member of the expedition refuses Lara's proposal until everyone else on the ship votes for Lara's theory on the location of the lost Yamatai civilization. Then the actual gameplay starts and you're immediately put in great danger.
To learn how to use all the features of the game, you're dragged into an underground cave system filled with the grisly remains of human sacrifices. Bleached skulls and rotting corpses line the walls and ceiling. You learn how to light a torch, crouch, escape capture, and respond to quick-time events as you're pursued by a wild man in the cave.
The story grows more suspenseful from there. You traverse cliffs, fallen trees, and abandoned towns, learning new skills at each new challenge. The story does not stop developing just to send you on a random collection mission. Lara is clearly exhausted after surviving a shipwreck, an abduction, and a near-death escape from a collapsing cave. Of course she needs to get fire and food to survive. By incorporating actual exposition into the tutorial stages, developer Square Enix justifies standard learning missions as essential to the story.
When Tomb Raider goes past the basic tutorial, it only gets better. Tension is already high from the life or death stakes of the first chunk of gameplay. Now that the story and world is open to explore, you run the experience. The game is filled with alternate missions--unmarked tombs to explore--and a great upgrade system you earn by trying different techniques and discovering different artifacts. You do not have to seek out anything you don't want to, but the game does reward you for taking your time and exploring all it has to offer.
The Tomb Raider reboot shows how to do the tutorial mode most modern games cannot escape. If you actually make the game focus on the real story from the start, you can slowly integrate the new skills needed as a welcome part of the gaming experience. You don't need literal signposts and labeled training missions; you just need to trust your audience to interact with a gentle push here and there during the story.
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