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"Seems you'll need a bit of a tutorial... (sighs) Very well, we'll start simple."
Warren Vidic, Assassin's Creed, with a big ol' lampshade

As games become more and more complex and the basic functions required become more numerous, players become less interested in reading through 20+ pages of manual just to find out how to open the inventory. For that reason, game designers are increasingly relying on integrated tutorials to tell the player what to do as they play through the early parts of the game.

One way of doing this is to have the characters tell the player how to do their thing throughout the game. This can be conveniently made diegetic if the player character is a Kid Hero or New Meat, but if the protagonist is some kind of soldier or otherwise trained character it rather spoils the game's atmosphere to make them look like a rookie. It's even worse when the protagonist is being told stuff they already know, and the designers couldn't think of a way to work in a tutorial.

To this end, the Justified Tutorial provides a special in-continuity tutorial section which allows the character to "train" or learn their stuff without it looking too forced. Sometimes these sequences are integrated into the start of the game; in others, they are optional from the menu. In either case, they are part of the game's universe rather than being self-contained tutorials.

The in-game tutorials are sometimes dependent on the difficulty setting, meaning that they aren't present in higher difficulty playthroughs.

See also Auto-Pilot Tutorial, when the game demonstrates the tutorial for you, blocking any other interaction.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    4X 
  • The X-Universe series has its share of justified tutorials.
    • X: Beyond the Frontier integrates its tutorial into you putting an xperimental combat shuttle through its paces (teaching you how to shoot, having you Pass Through the Rings to learn maneuvering/test the shuttle's systems, etc.). Then your jumpdrive goes haywire and you end up several galaxies away with no way home.
    • In addition to the obvious (and optional) "Flight School" tutorial, X3: Terran Conflict's first plot (there's nine altogether) is effectively one long tutorial, with "Press X for Y effect" popping up on your HUD.

    Action Adventure 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: The tutorial segment starts off with Ann entering a virtual combat simulator to test out the latest update to the Grom System that was implemented into her combat suit.
  • Avencast: Rise of the Mage: Given that the protagonist begins by taking final exams in Wizarding School, the tutorial fits perfectly.
  • The Batman Begins Licensed Game starts, like the film, with Bruce getting trained by the League of Shadows.
  • The first "level" in the PC version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone involves Fred and George Weasley guiding Harry through part of the school. This teaches the player how to run and jump, to watch out for certain pitfalls, and about the importance of Bertie Botts' Every-Flavour Beans (the game's currency). The built-in Wizarding School premise allows you to be taught how to do spells by the, well, teachers. While in the Playstation version of the game, the tutorial hits as Malfoy steals Hedwig, causing Ron and Harry to chase after him, Ron teaching Harry how to run and jump as well as everything else covered in the PC tutorial. The later Harry Potter games, by which time Harry really should know basic magic, find a roundabout way to do this. Generally, when the game wants to teach you how to do X, a character will ask Harry, "Can you teach me how to do X?" with the explanation actually being for your benefit and your attempts to do the spell being Harry's "demonstration" for the other character.
  • The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction begins with a soldier wearing a VR helmet to "simulate" being the Hulk, in order to learn his techniques and how he smashes.
  • In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Raziel gets toasted by the bossman Kain and thrown into hell. When he is revived, he is still a bit torn up (wings shredded, lower jaw missing, etc.), and many of his abilities have changed. His new benefactor is kind enough to walk him through the use of his new abilities.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Kokiri and the elements that make up Link's home village perform a tutorial as they speak to Link: One Kokiri asks him to use his sword to cut the grass, another (sitting on a ledge) teaches him to use his new fairy to speak at a distance. You can also simply ignore them altogether and just dive right into the game.
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has Link engage in a sparring match with elderly wise man Orca at his cottage; doing so will obtain the sword needed to progress through the first half of the game. Players can also return much later to engage in a harder sparring challenge to earn some particularly nifty rewards.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Link's friends ask him to show off the slingshot and wooden sword he acquired, shortly before they chase after a monkey and Link gets his first taste of real enemies chasing after them. More advanced sword moves are taught to Link by the ghost of the Hero of Time.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Link's final exam, Zelda's escape, Link's sword training, and the Tunnel to the Tower all teach the player about operating the train, avoiding and controlling Phantoms, using the sword, and solving puzzles, respectively.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has the sparring hall, which while it is optional, allows the player to get used to the new motion controls, while being able to get the feel of the enemies seen in the game. They also justify the flight tutorial with two reasons: one, Link's just been gliding with his Loftwing recently (right before a ceremony which requires great control over a Loftwing); and two, said Loftwing was very recently imprisoned, and Zelda wants to make sure nothing's overly wrong.
  • In the first dungeon of Lenna's Inception, Lenna explains the basic game mechanics to Lance.
  • Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Chapter 0 serves as an introduction to the main gameplay elements by introducing the player to Solution Keys and the Mystery Labyrinth. The first murder case revolves around the deaths of multiple Master Detectives, and Yuma has to find the culprit alongside Shinigami, while being introduced to the mechanics of the Mystery Labyrinth along the way.
  • Mirror's Edge does this quite smoothly — Faith's recent accident put her out of commission for a while, and so she has to show Merc that she's back in shape. The training serves as an introduction to both Faith's fellow runner Celeste and the game's unique play style. Plus it can be skipped at any time.
  • Nier:
    • The tutorial takes place immediately after the protagonist signs a pact with Grimoire Weiss, so it's him learning how to use magic to fend off Shades. This is important for a few reasons; it takes place 1300 years before the game proper, it serves as a Taste of Power for the spells you can get and it's actually the Shadowlord's origin. You can even do it again later as a part of a sidequest and get the pipe you used back then.
    • NieR: Automata: The menu tutorial at first appears inexplicable, but reveals itself to be 9S guiding 2B through the Diegetic Interface as she comes back online.
  • Roughly a third of the gameplay of each Overlord game consists of Minion and strategy tutorials. The first game does it so well that it's hardly noticeable - the sequel, unfortunately, is much less subtle about its tutorials.
  • Pikmin:
    • Pikmin 2 has the first day spent controlling Louie, who needs to learn the ropes from someone who's been to the Pikmin planet before.
    • Pikmin 3: As the game's main characters are new additions to the cast who have never been to the Pikmin's world before, the tutorial sections of the game consist of them getting used to their new surroundings and teaching themselves how to lead the Pikmin.

    Action Game 
  • Many, if not all, of the Army Men games had a boot camp level and in the case of Air Tactics, Air Attack and such, flight school.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002) used this in the form of a training run set up by Giles.
  • Iji starts her self-titled game waking up six months after an Alien Invasion and implanted with some of their nanomachines. Her brother Dan explains to her how everything works via logbooks he left behind, which can be skipped. Hidden skills are explained in other logbooks throughout the game.
  • The Iron Man game's tutorial is when Tony first puts on the armor to escape the cave he was held in. The tutorial proceeds as Tony gets used to controlling the armor, continuing in the second mission when he upgrades it to include flight capabilities and tests them out. In the second one, his armor is damaged at the beginning of the game and he only has limited systems available. It self repairs, however, and more functions return as the tutorial goes on.
  • Kane & Lynch: Dead Men puts an interesting spin on this, with the hero and player character, Kane, actually training another character, Lynch, in the finer points of in-game combat, such as throwing grenades, precise aiming, rappelling, and whatnot. Functionally it's the same as other examples on this page, but works well since Kane is already expected to possess these skills.
  • The Matrix: Path of Neo has this, since Neo needs to learn to fight in a series of tutorials, with Tank acting as Mr. Exposition and explaining how to do everything.
  • Reservoir Dogs has a tutorial sequence where Joe Cabot trains Mr. Orange (the newest member of his gang) on the basics of armed robbery before the big jewelry store hold-up. The training sequence has the gang using paintball bullets and setting up a training simulation in an empty warehouse, with the other criminals sarcastically acting out the roles of cops and civilians.
  • Terminator: Dawn of Fate for the XBox has a nice twist. The good guys just built a new training facility and so they invite the seasoned operative, Kyle Reese, to test it out and see if it is cool.

    Adventure Game 
  • All of the tutorials in Code 7 are In-Universe. Usually, they're explanations from Helper or one of your current partners, or were prepared beforehand for someone else. At first, they're justified by the fact that Alex has Laser-Guided Amnesia and so needs to learn the basics again; later on, you need them because you're using functions that are completely new both to them and you.
  • Creep TV: The tutorial is about controlling Courage to prepare some dog food in the kitchen, so he can stop the grumbling he heard from his belly.
  • The Journeyman Project 3 has the player try out the various interface functions as Mr. Exposition performs a diagnostic on his suit. The original The Journeyman Project was less successful, however, unless we are to believe that it is part of Agent 5's job each day to read the instruction manual for his biosuit. The remake Pegasus Prime fixes this problem from the first game, as it transforms the review of the biosuit manual from a daily task into a small portion of Gage's punishment for being late to work for the fourth time.
  • Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Inverted in the first episode, Homestar Ruiner. One of the objectives in the game involves disguising Strong Bad as Homestar Runner and entering the Free Country USA Triannual Race To The End Of The Race in his place. The first time you run the race you're going to do terribly because Strong Bad has no idea what he's doing and Coach Z flat-out refuses to tell him because, as Homestar, he's supposed to have been training for the race for a good while now. It's parodied in the game's actual tutorial, where Strong Sad complains that he doesn't want to be in Strong Bad's stupid tutorial, and where Bubs has apparently been paid to read his part of the script.
  • The various Telltale Games all tend to start you out in a safe environment, such as a police car in The Walking Dead or a party in Batman The Tell Tale Series, where your conversation and action choices will only have minor, if any, impact on the story and no true risk of game over or consequences, to let you play with the game's controls before hurling a life or death SAVE CATWOMAN OR SAVE HARVEY DENT type of choice in your face.

    Fighting Game 

    First-Person Shooter 
  • America's Army includes a well done tutorial based on real-life Basic Training, with movement being taught on the obstacle course, combat covered during weapons familiarization and MOUT, etc. It famously includes some First Aid information. Which is infamously delivered to the player by making his character sit in a classroom and listen to a long lecture. Which, as anyone who has been through Basic Training knows, is a very common teaching style in the military. The information given there is also real info given out to real medics. So much so that a man who had played the game used the info he learned there to save another man's life after a traffic accident.
  • Bioshock Infinite teaches players about the use of weapons and Vigors with the mini-games at the Columbia Fair and Raffle.
  • Call of Duty:
    • Call of Duty begins with a pretty detailed training mission set in Camp Toccoa, Georgia, where the 506th Regiment, Pvt. Martin's unit, was trained with regards to basic training and weapons handling.
    • Call of Duty 3 begins with a brief training mission — after which you are bundled into a van and driven straight into a warzone.
    • Call of Duty 2 did the same, except without the van — because in Soviet Russia, the warzone comes to you.
    • Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare plays with this. The first level takes place during the Battle of Seoul, and walks the player through basic movement and weapon skills as they work to combat enemy forces and destroy a missile battery. The second mission (after the "funeral scene") has Jack Mitchell seemingly taking part in an operation to rescue the President of the United States, which goes awry when his newly-installed mechanical arm acts up. At that point, it's revealed that the "mission" was a simulation, you get a tour of Atlas and are introduced to various aspects of the "exosuit", and you get to redo the simulation with your newly-learned abilities and skills.
    • Call of Duty: Black Ops II has a tutorial for the Strike Force levels that is justified as a systems and operability check for a base that had just been attacked by SDC forces; the first real level has you defending it from a second wave.
    • Call of Duty: Black Ops III does something similar. The first mission has as little tutorial as possible, only pointing out how to do some of the basic new stuff like sliding, while you watch your Cyborg teammates pull off superhuman feats. Then your character gets horribly maimed after a failed extraction and undergoes surgery to become a cyborg like them, with the second level acting as a tutorial for all the cool new stuff you can do like hacking into drones, running along walls, and ripping through entire train cars full of the kind of robot that crippled you in the first mission like they're made of cardboard.
    • Modern Warfare:
      • Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has your character as a new SAS member; after passing Selection, it's his first day in the Regiment. As such, he has to go through some weapons familiarization (aka target practice) and a timed close quarters battle (CQB) drill... in a plywood mock-up of the beginning area of the first mission. This is not as useful as the real thing, since you're doing this solo instead of as a fire team in the real mission, where the AI teammates tend to beat you to the front of the line and thus block your fire while killing the tangos themselves... thus negating the point of that CQB drill.
      • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 includes a similar tutorial, justified as a demonstration for recruits in Afghanistan, with a similar drill as a test of your character's skill in preparation for a special mission.
  • The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay has an extremely clever justification for the tutorial level and the 'Press this for that' button warnings. A daydream on the way to prison...
  • At the start of the first mission in COD 2 Spanish Civil War Mod, your character has to pass a training course at the military base in Melilla. Being a professional soldier in an elite unit, it is understandable that Shabah would be required to train frequently. Besides, given that the military is preparing a rebellion, the commanders would want their subordinates to be in top shape and insist on training even more frequently than usual.
  • A significant portion of The Conduit tells the story in a How We Got Here perspective, with the very first tutorial level starting right in the middle of the action. The player character gets up off the ground after having apparently been knocked down by an explosion, and much of the tutorial consists of the Voice with an Internet Connection telling the character to perform several actions to check if his Powered Armor is still functioning correctly.
  • Crysis:
    • The first game does it in a similar way to Halo: After you jump out of the plane with the rest of the squad, an attack causes your parachute to fail. Luckily, you are in a supersuit, and you land on water. You survive, but are miles away from the team who get scattered due to the attack. The suit resets, and your commander runs you through a series of suit checks as the tutorial.
    • In Crysis 2, you have just been outfitted with the Nanosuit 2.0 by the suit's previous owner. Since said owner is now dead, the suit itself teaches you its functions over the course of the first level.
  • Deus Ex has an optional tutorial which combined this with He Knows About Timed Hits, and ends up featuring most of your allies (and future enemies) in their first appearances.
  • In Evolve the tutorials are part of the story. The monster tutorial is about a newly hatched monster, one that's still figuring out the whole "corporeal form" thing and thus learning things as the player is, in one of the opening attacks on Shear. The hunter tutorial follows Markov tracking the monster in the wake of the monster tutorial, with Bucket providing information in the form of tactical advice for tracking the monster and surviving the wildlife of Shear.
  • Far Cry:
    • Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has the protagonist's friend Spider hacking Rex's interface and forcing him through an incredibly annoying and tedious tutorial as a prank.
      Tutorial voice: To look around, look around.
    • Far Cry Evolution has an interesting handwave. Apparently sitting in a bar for three months knocking back drinks doesn't do so well for your ancient-predator skills. So you need to go to some island and knock some fools around. Or something. After the hand-wave it makes little sense.
  • Geist never bothers with a how-to-shoot tutorial, but after the main character is separated from his body his spirit is immediately put into a training/brainwashing machine, where he's shown some of the basics of being a ghost - floating around, possessing animals, drinking plant energy. After that the machine is broken by a Creepy Child ghost girl, who shows him how to possess objects, do things with them, and then how to scare humans so they can be possessed.
  • Gotham City Impostors opens with "Initiation," where two Mooks guide the player through some of the game's more unorthodox elements, such as grappling hooks, gliders, and boomerangs. This is the only scripted portion of the entire game.
  • Half-Life:
    • The first game features an optional Hazard Course section in which Gordon Freeman must learn how to use his HEV suit using an assault course in the Black Mesa labs. Broken versions of the Hazard Course turned up as parts of levels in the Opposing Force and Decay expansions.
    • Opposing Force details the HECU force preparing to leave for Black Mesa, and a crash course on how to utilize your PCV vest and the new sniper rifle.
    • Opposing Force also has Shepherd end up in a section of the Hazard Course, with the hologram reciting part of the tutorial in-universe (without references to keyboards).
    • Blue Shift: The Black Mesa body armor needs a little work getting used to so the guards are asked to run through an obstacle course. It's nearly identical to the original Hazard Course, save for swapping powered Long Jump training with an extended ordinary jumping segment.
    • In Half-Life 2, several training segments are seamlessly integrated into gameplay.
      • During the opening, you have to pick up and manipulate objects with the basic controls before even receiving a gun or HEV suit. One setpiece has you pile up boxes to reach and climb through a window at Barney's insistence, while another has you picking up a can knocked to the ground by a Metrocop, which you can either throw at his head or put in a trash can like he commands.
      • The acquisition of the Gravity Gun partway through the game also works in a tutorial on how to use it by having you navigate the junkyard behind Black Mesa East with Alyx's help, while also sneaking in a tutorial on how to deal with Rollermines by having you and D0g play catch with a deactivated one.
      • The functions of Bugbait are taught by a Vortigaunt who uses a dedicated training ground in his home base to show you how to use it.
  • Halo:
    • Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 both start with your character performing basic movements like walking around and using the camera controls so that the technicians can calibrate his suit. Your reactions to prompts like "look up" also allow the game to guess your control preferences.
      • Cleverly, in the first level of Halo 1 the game will keep track of what controls you are using, and if you don't use one the game will present a challenge that requires it, with on-screen instructions as to which button to push. For instance, if you're not meleeing you will find a jammed door that needs to be forced.
    • Halo 3 had an interesting take on this trope, as the tutorial takes place out in the middle of the jungle. Having jumped from a spaceship and fallen several kilometers, Master Chief's armour needs recalibration, because it is still "in partial lockdown" after having taken the brunt of his impact. A medic stands in front of you in your crater and holds up a little card, saying "look up here... now down here..."
    • In Halo 3: ODST, your "tutorial" is just the Rookie activating some explosive blots to release his pod door open.
    • Averted in Halo: Reach: The game checks to see if you want to invert the look controls or not, then dumps you into the campaign. You still get a chance to get used to looking around in the opening to the first level, where you are encouraged to look at two separate locations from the passenger seat of a Falcon. Games under the watch of 343 Industries have skipped even that part altogether.
    • Parodied in the E3 2019 trailer for Halo Infinite, in which the dropship pilot begins Master Chief's armor check as in 1 and 2, but Chief just ignores him, as if to say, "Yeah, by now, we know how to play the game. Let's just get to it."
  • kill.switch has a bog-standard tutorial level even though the main character is supposed to be a super soldier. It's justified in-game as being a test of the new neural interface technology rather than of his basic combat skills.
  • Medal of Honor:
    • Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault has Conlin and his future squadmates go through boot camp, complete with Drill Sergeant Nasty. They take courses in obstacle clearing, basic and specialized marksmanship training, squad tactics, and basic first aid.
    • Medal of Honor: Airborne opens with Travers and other paratrooper trainees going through advanced parachute training in North Africa a few months prior to the Sicily landings.
  • Metroid Prime starts out with Samus exploring a mostly-derelict Space Pirate vessel. Whenever she encounters anything that must be done, a message pops up on the screen telling the player how to do it (so, when she encounters a console that must be scanned, the player is told about the scan visor, while it's assumed Samus herself already knows how to use it). The tutorial mostly ends when Samus gets the Bag of Spilling.
  • The Nameless Mod is set in a virtual reality, and the main character is said to have not logged into in two years. The tutorial is set up to be an upgrade system that shows returning users how to use the new features in the simulation. Gameplay wise, the tutorial assumes that the user knows about the basic Deus Ex controls, and is just trying to show off the new features the mod has.
  • In the iOS game Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, your character was a veteran soldier who had been discharged for some time, but is literally shanghai’d for this mission. He is rusty and therefore needs a primer.
  • PAYDAY 2 justifies its tutorial heists by Dallas returning to the PAYDAY gang following the events of the previous game, and the tutorials are Bain testing Dallas to see if he still has what it takes to be in the gang.
  • PAYDAY 3, meanwhile, justifies the tutorial by having them be plywood mock-ups which Chains runs through after exiting retirement.
  • Perfect Dark had a few tutorials presented as various training rooms in the heroine's home base.
  • Star Trek: Elite Force has a training mode that is obviously set on the holodeck. The sequel justifies it even further, since the protagonist is now a hardened veteran: Starfleet regulations supposedly require annual recertification with phasers and tricorders and other equipment.
  • System Shock 2 presents player tutorials as cyberspace simulations, and in-universe they're actually recruitment aids for the government's three military branches. According to the manual, the protocol droid stationed at the recruitment center's entrance is there to keep local teenagers from using the tutorials as a free arcade.
  • Tribes 2 has several missions acting as tutorials, such as locking your armor for a hud and systems check after a bomber crash in one mission to introduce basic movement and combat before other missions move onto stealth, commanding and sabotage as well as a constant reminder to the skiing game mechanic.
  • Unreal series:
    • Unreal II: The Awakening has an optional tutorial which is given to you by Sector Commander Hawkins in the very first level. Should Dalton take the offer, he'll proclaim "I could use a refresher", and the next level has him going through the TCA Tutorial Course under the guidance of Raff, where he learns the basics of movement, some weapons, and ends up with a repeatable 1-on-1, 5-frags Deathmatch fight against Raff's hologram form.
    • Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict has Sobek, Anubis's companion and an old participant of the Tournaments, guiding Anubis through the first rungs of the Ascension Rites (fittingly named "Movement Training" and "Combat Training") separated by an assasination sequence where Anubis has to deal with some robots, and ending with a proper 1-on-1 march against Sobek.
    • Unreal Tournament III has Reaper being mortally wounded during the siege of Twin Souls. Afterwards, he's rescued, (mostly) fully healed... And her sister Jester wants to fight her 1-on-1, guiding him through a movement and shooting tutorials. Later tutorials have them going through the basics of the Capture the Flag, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes, as well as the introduction of the Translocator, vehicles, the Hoverboard, and the new features that Warfare introduced in relationship with Onslaught from 2004.

    Hack and Slash 
  • Devil May Cry 4: The first mission slowly goes through the basic controls as the fight progresses against Dante. At first, Nero can only bring up his Blue Rose, justifying the shoot and evasion controls. He then picks up a Caliburn in the next cutscene and the tutorial teaches you how to perform a basic melee combo and a Launcher Move. Nero's sling is removed later on, allowing him to use his Devil Bringer and for the tutorial to teach you the Buster mechanic. If the Tutorials setting is disabled in the menu, all of these scenes will be skipped and the game will immediately start with the proper boss fight.
  • In Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi etc., the first battle of any Kingdom/Character's story mode (usually The Yellow Turban's Rebellion in the case of Dynasty Warriors) acts as the tutorial, with the commander explaining how to handle forts, checkpoints, allies calling for help, short-term goals, etc.

    MMORPG 
  • City of Heroes has an optional tutorial in which you play the part of a new hero who has just arrived in Paragon City. You are sent to help contain a chemical outbreak that is turning street punks into mindless killers. You are then taught how to use Inspirations and Enhancments, how the Mission system works, and how to determine an enemy's level by the color its name is. The actual control system is displayed in a window that shows whenever you start a new character. The Villain's tutorial teaches all the same things, but the setup is even more justified. You are breaking out of jail and have to recover your powers, beat up guards, and plant a bomb before you can get away. With the advent of City of Heroes: Freedom, both heroes and villains start in the same tutorial, helping the Freedom Phalanx fight off magic meteor creatures before deciding which side you will join.
  • DC Universe Online begins with your newly-empowered character escaping from one of Brainiac's ships and fighting off robots, with the guidance of Oracle or Calculator (depending on your alignment) teaching your how to use your powers.
  • In Earth & Beyond, to learn new abilities, you would have to complete a short mission in which the use of that ability was required to succeed, ensuring that the player actually knew how to use said ability.
  • The MMO Fallen Earth begins with the player character freshly decanted from a cloning tube, after being cloned, mindwiped, and killed for hundreds if not thousands of cycles of life and death, and thus justifiably unsure of how to walk. It goes downhill from there.
  • Final Fantasy XI originally averted this trope by dumping a brand new player in his starting city with a coupon worth 50 gil, visible body armor and a weapon and, if you matched up the correct race with the correct city, a special ring. They later added a tutorial quest series that starts when you trade the coupon in, provided your character was created after that particular update.
  • Final Fantasy XIV works the initial main story quests as a tutorial of sorts. When you first start out, the very first quest teaches you the basic controls by having you go to a specific spot in the starting city in an isolated environment so you're not distracted by the other players in the game. The quests afterwards are mostly to let you get a feel for combat in a more freeform approach. But at level 15 or so, you're given the option to learn at the "Hall of the Novice", which teaches you about what role your class plays in dungeons. As an incentive for doing all of the tutorials, you get a set of armor that will carry you through quite a few levels.
  • Kingdom of Loathing holds your hand and tells you how you're supposed do everything during the first quest, to get you started. The quest is, appropriately, given to you by the puneriffic Toot Oriole.
  • The Matrix Online has a fairly well-integrated tutorial sequence, in which you, as a new Redpill, have to calibrate your in-world HUD (presented within your field of view directly by The Matrix) and are taught about combat.
  • The online, MMO portion of Phantasy Star Universe handled its (optional) tutorial mission, "SEED-Form Purge," this way. All new player characters were assumed to be new employees of the GUARDIANS Security Corporation, fresh from its academy. Any actual explanation of gameplay mechanics was done through text on screen rather than through the characters, with character dialogue giving the impression that equivalent in-universe explanations were given to the player character.
  • Runescape featured Tutorial Island, which is a bit Fourth Wall breaking for this trope but scrapes by.
    • This has since been redone into a Tutorial basement located under Lumbridge, wherein the PC must perform a number of tasks for a high-levelled NPC as he explains the world to you.
    • Finally further expanded into an entire town dedicated in-universe to helping newcomers to the land. Different from the old town dedicated to this purpose. Runescape has gone through a lot of tutorials. The basement version went through 3-4 different versions, including a revert to the old island.
    • In the original Runescape, it was just a house where a bunch of people told you how to do things.
    • Parodied in the quest "Beneath Cursed Tides", which takes you to the sunken remains of the original Tutorial Island. The inhabitants, now turned into crab people, give you the old tutorials regardless of your level, because there's nothing else to do. If your account dates back to the original Tutorial Island, they recognize you and comment on your progress, but carry on with making you burn shrimps to learn about cooking and such.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • Done in the Wrath Of The Lich King expansion: On making a new Death Knight character, the player is introduced to the workings of the class, some of the expansion's new features, and a significant amount of plot by doing the bad guy's dirty work, including things like terrorizing a village from the back of a skeletal griffin. This is exactly as awesome as it sounds.
    • Other character classes in WoW don't get true tutorials, but they get a similar effect in two different ways. The most obvious way is, when you create a new character, every time that character is prompted to do something new (talk to an NPC, accept a quest, read the map) an exclamation mark appears. Click on it and it opens a window telling you how to do it. Experienced players or players who want to find their own way around can turn off that setting. More subtly, most classes get new abilities every other level until 40, more or less. That means you have two levels to learn to use the one you just got before you get another one.
    • Mists Of Pandaria introduced Monks, who go to the Peak of Serenity in Pandaria to spar with a trainer. Depending on the trainer, they can only be defeated by using a certain technique you learn while leveling up (Such as touch of death, spear hand strike, etc. etc.).

    Platform Game 
  • The tutorials found in the Jak and Daxter games all have different in-game justifications:
    • The Precursor Legacy: Samos orders Jak and Daxter to navigate Geyser Rock so they have some training before trying to go out and collect the Power Cells necessary for their journey North to get Daxter turned back into a human (Samos is very skeptical that they can be heroes).
    • Jak II: Renegade:
      • Daxter is helping Jak escape from prison after being experimented on for two years so he's kind of rusty ("Do you remember how to jump?").
      • The new gunplay mechanics are also given their own tutorial as Jak has never used a gun before so Sig has him go through a shooting range for each new gun mod he acquires.
      • The hoverboard is also explained well in the story. After getting the hoverboard the first time Keira explains the ropes just before he goes into an arena and does a point challenge which is justified since it's one of the only places where using it in city walls is legal.
    • Jak 3: Wastelander: After Veger had Jak exiled he has to prove his worth to Damas that he can be a worthwhile citizen to Spargus so he has to run a gauntlet and fight in a coliseum. This persists through most of Act 1 as Jak is taught how to ride Leaper Lizards and drive their desert vehicles for the first time.
  • Psychonauts has Basic Braining. The young psychics go into Coach Oleander's mind for training in basic platforming on a live-fire obstacle course. Additionally, shorter tutorials are given by teachers whenever the protagonist learns a new psychic ability.
  • The tutorial messages seen throughout the Ratchet & Clank games are a helpdesk service operated by Gadgetron which Ratchet is subscribed to who even appears as an NPC during a late-game level through Gadgetron's headquarters. She's replaced with Megacorp's services during the second game when Ratchet is working for the company then Clank during Ratchet: Deadlocked due to their imprisonment by Gleeman Vox.
  • Sly Cooper: The prologue of each title starts off with the gang in the midst of pulling a heist and getting a warm-up on basic controls for the tutorial.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Xbox. The turtles start out the game by breaking into the big bad's fortress; they end up entering in the training area.
  • The early Tomb Raider games allowed you to romp around Lara's house and training grounds to get used to the various different controls.

    Puzzle Game 
  • Ghost Trick seems to be unique in that it has the tutorial first (Ray explaining to Sissel how to use his Ghost Tricks to save Lynne), but the actual justification doesn't come until later. As in, the literal end of the game later. Ray was manipulating Sissel into participating in the main plot, because in a previous timeline, he refused, and the bad guys won as a result.
  • Portal:
    • The entire first half of Portal is a Justified Tutorial, since you're a new test subject and they do have to explain the concepts to you. The basic commands involved appear as pop-up instructions just as they did in Half-Life 2.
    • Portal 2 features a more standard tutorial in the form of a routine check-up of test subjects in hypersleep; the ridiculousness of the commands you are given ("look up at the ceiling", "look down at the floor", "go stare at the painting") is integrated into the series' characteristic humor. It then parodies the trope in the next scene, where Wheatley asks Chell to say "Hello" and then "Apple", and the player is prompted to do both by pressing space, which actually just makes you jump. Wheatley concludes Chell has brain damage.
  • The protagonist's friend in Welcome to the Game gives the player character what he needs to know about infiltrating the Deep Web and a guide on what to do when being hacked.

    Racing Game 
  • The tutorial for Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway has the in-universe justification of it actually being SpongeBob practicing for his boating exam, with Sandy, Squidward and Patrick all piping in to offer advice. Interestingly, the tutorial takes place at Kamp Koral rather than Mrs. Puff's Boating School.

    Real-Time Strategy 
  • Age of Empires II has a whole tutorial campaign, setting you as a supporter of William Wallace's rebellion against Edward I "Longshanks" of England's occupation of Scotland. (Braveheart had only come out a few years earlier.) New and more complex topics are introduced over the course of the campaign, which is justified by the storyline of a band of rebels waging a guerrilla war while gathering the strength to fight the kind of pitched battle needed to send the occupiers packing.
  • Almost half of Brütal Legend's story mode is one giant tutorial for the multiplayer aspects of the game, but split up across different events. Team positioning is Eddie setting up the rules to the headbangers on how they'll function as a team.
  • Command & Conquer:
    • Red Alert 2 features a boot camp campaign.
    • Red Alert 3 puts a humorous twist to this: the three sides, represented by the main tank type each side uses, calls a cease-fire and bands together to train the new commander (the player) on how to play the game "so that you don't send men to die needlessly." Despite the truce, the three tanks frequently banter and shoot at each other, most often at the Soviet Hammer tank.
  • In Desperados the game begins as the main hero meets his old-time buddy in the middle of a town festival and is invited to participate in some healthy and editorial activities, like flowerpot-shooting and knife-throwing. Each new member of the team later gets his/her own personal level to show off their abilities. Notable, that the tutorials for the last two members are done in full-blown combat conditions and can get them killed.
  • Both Homeworld games frame the tutorial as a series of preflight tests for the newly-built mothership. There is also a tutorial on using the camera and issuing movement commands in three dimensions that is not part of the first level, and can be skipped.
  • Iron Harvest puts you in the child shoes of future Polanian resistance hero Anna Kos during the winter snows, as she tries to involve herself in a snowball fight with the local village boys. During the course of the "battle", the game teaches you about movement and its Company of Heroes inspired cover system, and later introduces unit special abilities during a deer hunting sequence with her brother, Janek Kos. The game picks up again 5 years later at the armistice of 1920+ WW1, where constant practice in the woods around her home has honed her into a world-class Sharpshooter.
  • The tutorial for Medieval II: Total War places you as a Lieutenant in William the Conqueror's army, in the battle of Hastings in which William invaded England and later became its king. The game itself begins in 1087, upon William's death, and the "suggested" campaign for new players is the English Faction campaign, which naturally continues that story if you've just played the tutorial. Whichever faction you choose though, the game will likely be heavily influenced by this new dynasty on the rise in the Island Kingdom (except if you are playing Scotland, in which case you are going to destroy them within the first 10 turns, or if you play Russia/Byzantine and thus are sufficiently far away, and sufficiently not a crusade target for England to not really care).
  • Pikmin: The first three games in the series all have at least one playable character who is new to managing the title creatures and learns along with the tutorial.
    • Pikmin (2001): The tutorial is Olimar figuring out how to manage Pikmin for the first time by himself.
    • Pikmin 2: Louie is separated on the first day and the Hocotate Ship instructs him how to use Pikmin to reunite with Olimar.
    • Pikmin 3 is about a new team, and a large part of the tutorial has Alph learning how to command Pikmin from notes left behind by Olimar.
  • Pokémon Conquest features the player character having recently become Warlord of a new Kingdom. Cue convenient Mooks trying to take over the place. Since he/she has never been in battle before (don't ask how that works), a girl by the name of Oichi hops in and lends him/her a hand in battle.
  • In Sacrifice, the player character begins as a master wizard, for whom a tutorial would be rife with As You Know. Instead, the tutorial/prologue has the player control a different character, a novice wizard who appears in the game proper as an NPC.
  • StarCraft:
    • StarCraft:
      • A marine says, "Permission to speak freely, sir? I don't really think you know what you're doing." and proceeds to explain the two basic modes of movement. As one is new to the job of being the local magistrate, it's understandable. In addition, one can skip this mission. They integrate further minor tutorials into the first missions of the Zerg and Protoss campaigns as well (chiefly to explain the quirks of each faction).
      • In "Brood Wars" missions that introduce new units would start with either a short in-engine cut-scene or a combat encounter designed to show-off that unit's abilities and advantages.
    • In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm the newly dezergified Kerrigan has to undergo various tests, including the one intended to assess the extent of her remaining control over the zerg. It starts harmless enough, with building construction, making of working units, and resource gathering, but then Kerrigan, who doesn't enjoy being a guinea pig at all, decides to show her overseers why this is a really bad idea and dissuade them from any further experiments. So she makes some combat units and thrashes their entire testing facility. For bonus points, you can finish the entire mission with _just drones_ (worker units) to hammer the point home, and the characters will react to this ("Is this a game to you?").
  • World in Conflict justifies its tutorial as a training exercise for an officer newly reported to the unit from a military academy, with a more senior officer having been assigned as your mentor. It is skippable, but does provide a few plot details about the ongoing war in Europe that's about to be brought home to the US.

    Rhythm Game 
  • Friday Night Funkin': The tutorial is taught by Girlfriend on a stage, making it clear that she's helping her rapper Boyfriend do a vocal warm-up. A scratch version of the tutorial music begins with her saying that it's supposed to be a refresher before the initial confrontation with her father.

    Role-Playing Game 
  • Alpha Protocol presents the tutorial as a "surprise" evaluation scenario to see how quickly Mike recovers from heavy sedation (necessary to ship him to Alpha Protocol's secret base), and how he reacts to unexpected events (violently). They're followed by more overt tutorials from the initial Mission Control characters to make sure he's up to speed on the tools Alpha Protocol uses. If Mike is a veteran, they're double-checking that his capabilities line up with his credentials, while if he's a rookie they have to make sure he can learn.
  • Bonfire: The party banter throughout the tutorial quest serves as a primer on their basic abilities and strategies: Hildie will remind the Squishy Wizards to let her protect them from hits, Ephrem will inform the player of Maximum HP Reduction, and Zivko will explain how his charges work. This is used continually throughout the game, with many of the tactics quests (tutorials on advanced strategies) being introduced by the heroes discussing them in-universe, and misplays like letting Zivko's charges expire or healing characters who don't need it get pointed out via party banter as well.
  • Dark Souls has one of these. It's you in a neglected, derelict prison scrounging around for any available weapons and gear and an escape, trying to deal with the few other escaped prisoners, and the Asylum Demon. the tutorial is rather brilliant. it teaches you the basic controls and subtly shows you that the direct option is not always the best. unless you want to wail on the Asylum Demon with your straight sword hilt and get stomped, you need to run from a scripted fight, explore your environment for tools, and talk with NPCs to learn more about the world, your goals, and get free stuff.
  • Both of the first games of the .hack series (Infection and Rebirth) feature the main character first starting to play The World and being taught to play by other characters. Also subverted in Rebirth when, after Haseo gets changed from level 133 to 1, a group of characters try to give him a tutorial again, causing an annoyed Haseo to explain that he knows everything already.
  • The "tutorial"—a big mess of darkspawn and one pissed-off ogre—in the first five or ten minutes of Dragon Age II is Varric at his finest. When Cassandra tells him to knock it off and tell the truth, the gameplay shifts into normal mode and the battles become harder to fight.
  • The first chapter of Dungeon Siege II is a chapter of tutorial, which has you go in a quick training just before being shoved into warzone. If you're replaying the game in higher difficulty, the game skips to the second chapter immediately.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • With the exception of its second installment, the series integrates its tutorials into your character's escape or release from prison. This began all the way back in Arena, where your guide is the ghost of Jagar Tharn's Empire-loyal apprentice.
    • Daggerfall has a tutorial dungeon where the protagonist wakes up after being washed ashore in a storm and has to fight their way up to the surface (just how exactly the "storm" pushed them some 100 meters underground is Hand Waved). To add injury to insult, the tutorial is bugged. Out of eleven parts, the player will typically only encounter eight and "tutorial 9" will never load. The remainder tips do exist, so it's not just a psychological trick of some sort.
    • Morrowind has a very subtle one that amounts to a few text pop-ups regarding movement instructions, inventory use, and the various menus. It is neatly tied into character generation and can be completed in about five minutes. An area just after character creation has some additional optional tips (and can also be taken advantage of to pick up some stuff which won't count as stolen). Morrowind actually draws some criticism from those who say the tutorial is too short, as it has the toughest Early Game Hell in the series and doesn't explain some key elements (like how successful hits are calculated in combat).
    • Oblivion does a very fine job of blending the tutorial mission, the story premise, and the implicit class choice at once: you start off as a prisoner who escapes his cell by following the Emperor who is fleeing the city through underground passages. The game runs you through some basic interaction with the environment (melee combat, shooting, lockpicking), then the Emperor is killed shortly before escaping (kicking off the main quest), then one of his guards finalizes your character creation by suggesting what class you'd be best off with based on how your playing style was during the tutorial dungeon.
    • Skyrim works the basic features of the game into you escaping a dragon attack (and your own execution). After a chaotic runaround above ground for basic movement and interaction, you head underground for combat. Once the sandbox opens, there are several people in various towns who will give you instructions on smithing, alchemy, and enchanting. In Whiterun, for instance, you can help a smith out at her forge as she walks you through the process step-by-step, and you even get a helmet and dagger out of the deal.
  • The tutorial in Fable is made up to present the Hero being trained from childhood to young adulthood in a warrior's academy.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout 3 handles this in an unusual fashion. Your character's formative years are used as the framing device for both the tutorial and character creation. The character's gender, name, and appearance are determined during your character's birth, the last by the protagonist's father looking at a computer simulation of his child's growth. The movement tutorial and stat assignment portion involves you sneaking out of your crib as a toddler and reading a children's book called "You're SPECIAL" (SPECIAL being the game's stats system). The menu, dialogue, and combat tutorials involve your tenth birthday, where you deal with a bully demanding your sweet roll, get a Pip-Boy 3000 wrist computer and a BB gun as presents, and then use that BB gun to shoot a radroach. At the age of sixteen, you take an aptitude test, and then optionally talk to the teacher to have him adjust your results, to help determine your three tag skills. Finally, stealth, hacking and lockpicking are learned when you have to sneak out of the vault at age 19. Or, if that's still too much for you (or if you've made a bunch of alternate characters and are tired of the tutorial), you can make a save file just before you exit the vault, at which point you can remake your whole character from top to bottom in about five minutes. There are a few decisions regarding hostile characters that may require you to replay from the beginning, but nothing major. There's a similar sort of extended tutorial beyond that once you reach the town of Megaton, as shopkeeper Moira Brown turns out to be working on a "Wasteland Survival Guide"; you can help her by going out and doing things for the guide that in turn help you learn more about how to play (like navigating an abandoned town that's since been littered with landmines, teaching you how to deal with them) and and testing what you've already learned (like planting a tracking device among a clutch of mirelurk eggs, testing how well you understand stealth).
    • Fallout: New Vegas has your character just recently recovered from being shot in the head twice, prompting Doc Mitchell to make sure your faculties are in check, asking you some questions about your personality that determine your initial skills. Afterwards, he directs you to Sunny Smiles to set you up to be able to actually survive the Mojave. It's pretty useful to go through the tutorial for a few free items, but it's not necessary to actually do; the player is free to opt out after any major point in the tutorial and leave town to get on with the main story.
  • The player in Fantasy Life is new to any job it ends up taking and will be instructed by a master.
  • Most Final Fantasy games feature a "Newbie Hall" type of area in which NPCs teach you the basic gameplay mechanics. Some of the games have interesting takes on this:
    • Final Fantasy IV had a classroom in the first town full of students learning tactics that would give you advice. Oddly, in the 'Easy Type' American port, this classroom is copy/pasted into every town in the game, including the one you invade at the beginning!
    • Final Fantasy VI has a rather odd example - a school full of professors offering advice located at the outskirts of Narshe, a town the main characters are trying to flee at the start of the game. And in the world of Ruin, their school is one of only two buildings in the otherwise abandoned Narshe to still have people inside.
    Professor: "We'll be here for you even if the world should crumble."
    • Final Fantasy VII has an inversion at the start of the game: As a professional SOLDIER, you'd think Cloud wouldn't need a Tutorial. So instead he's the one giving them. When an embarrassed Barret confesses that he doesn't know how to use Materia, he asks Cloud to teach him. If the player agrees, the game's Materia system tutorial then begins. Barret will even criticize Cloud's patronizing attitude. Another more basic combat tutorial is triggered by three rookie adventurers asking Cloud for advice. There's even a second tutorial room found later in the game because the town the first one is in gets destroyed, and you'll find the ghosts of the people from the first room still available to provide game advice!
    • In Final Fantasy VIII, the game starts at Squall's final test, so Quistis, as his instructor, lends a hand by reminding him of some "basic concepts" that he should be all rights already know - like how to use the weapon that he's been training with for years, though she does sometimes prompt Squall for if needs a quick refresher on some things rather than force an impromptu tutorial. In addition, most of the tutorial can be accessed, appropriately enough, from the classroom computers in the military academy.
    • In Final Fantasy IX you get an optional interlude scene in which a moogle is teaching another moogle.
    • Final Fantasy X is another example of the protagonist actually being a rookie in battle, thus requiring the more experienced party members to explain to him how things work.
    • Final Fantasy XII notably averts the dangers of making the player's character look like a rookie when being taught by an NPC because Vaan is a rookie at the start of the game. Even before that, a lot of the game's tutorial is given to Vaan's brother Reks, who is himself a rookie soldier, taught by his more experienced commander. Quite the Player Punch when Reks is murdered at the end of the tutorial.
  • In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, the Djinn tutorial is given by Isaac, the hero of the previous game.
  • In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Roxas has just come into existence when he becomes a new member of Organization XIII. Different members get assigned to show him the ropes, such as exploring, attacking, using magic, and performing a Limit Break. Some of them aren't so nice about it, either.
  • Knights of the Old Republic:
    • In the first game, you have to escape from a ship boarded by the Sith with Trask Ulgo (fellow soldier and Exposition Fairy) holding your hand most of the way.
    • KOTOR II has a sequence aboard a disabled Ebon Hawk, with you playing T3-M4 trying to repair the ship enough to get to safety.
    • If you choose to skip the tutorial before you finish it, any items you've collected during it remain in your inventory when the game proper begins. You can use this combined with a glitch in the mine-disarming part of the tutorial to start with up to sixteen minor frag mines that you can then use or break down for parts.
  • The Legend of Heroes - Trails: The start of each game for a Story Arc has the tutorial explaining combat and orbments usage beginning with the protagonists going into battle for the following reasons; they're conducting an test to earn provisional licenses, performing a rescue mission, and conducting an exercise.
  • Lufia:
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2 starts off with Commander Shepard being brought back from the dead and awakening in an unfamiliar space station. Miranda, Jacob, and Wilson merely guide the way for Commander Shepard through the station, as they're perfectly aware that Shepard knows how to handle combat. The first mission on Freedom's Progress also includes a brief tutorial for ordering squadmates to position in preparation to fight a heavy mech.
    • Mass Effect 3 likewise begins with Commander Shepard escaping the Reaper invasion of Earth with Anderson, who orders Shepard to follow him and take out any hostiles in their way. The game's expanded melee combat system is introduced once Shepard runs out of thermal clips. The mission on Mars also introduces the player on moving between cover when Shepard has to run past an automated turret.
  • Mega Man:
    • A couple of the Mega Man Battle Network games half-justify their tutorials by framing them as lessons or homework from Lan's school.
    • Mega Man Star Force has something similar, but since Geo really is new to all this, it's not the same thing. There's still the pulsing in tutorial (justified, as usual, by it being repair work), but the tedious battling tutorial is skippable. The tutorial in Star Force 2 is skippable, but you still have to do the three virus fights.
  • The opening mission of Might and Magic VII was meant to function as one of these, and beautifully so since it doesn't seem contrived or forced (it gets a lot of mileage out of having the characters be new visitors to the isle, opening for covering asking about the purpose of building types as asking where they are in this little town). New players will spend enough time hanging around Noob Island to learn the ropes of the game, while veteran players will either have fun blasting through it in a few minutes flat or try to wrestle a Disc-One Nuke out of the island's resident dragon.
  • Neverwinter Nights:
    • The first game starts you out in the Academy of Adventure, which is promptly attacked after completing the tutorial.
    • In Neverwinter Nights 2, there is a tutorial adventure where you have to win games at the harvest fair in your starting village. Unusual in that you can opt to do this level without the tutorial.
  • Inverted for humorous effect and realism in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. When you first sign up for the Glitz Pit, Jolene the secretary goes through a lengthy explanation of the facilities and instructs you how to sign up for matches and the rule system under which you fight. After you've progressed almost halfway through the league, a new combatant signs up and Jolene gives him the exact same speech, forcing you to sit through a tutorial you've already heard and learned.
  • Persona 5 has Morgana, your then-Navigator, showing Joker the ropes of being a Phantom Thief. This only extends to Metaverse-side tutorials though. Igor may explain confidants to you, but the rest use normal tutorial boxes.
  • In Episode 1 Chapter 2 of Phantasy Star Universe's Story Mode, Karen teaches Ethan about forming parties and how mission points are earned. It's done fairly well, presenting a plausible in-universe system that justifies several gameplay mechanics that come up during online play.
  • The game pictured is a part of the Pokémon series. Each game features a different set of characters, including the playable character(s), and all of the playable characters must learn how to catch Pokémon, which can be Harder than It Looks even for players who are very familiar with the series. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen came with a comprehensive easy-access manual so integrated into the game that you could access it while you were saving your game progress.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and their remakes add an extra layer of justification; You're not being shown how to catch a Pokémon directly, instead, you're sent to watch over a rival and make sure he catches the Pokémon alright. It still plays out the same way as other catching tutorials, so the intent is pretty clear, but at least it's not shown as someone holding your hand through something that many players already know.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield justifies it by making it optional. The tutorial is given by Champion Leon on route 2 instead of route 1. If the player reaches route 2 without catching any Pokémon, then he thinks you could use some advice and starts the tutorial; if the player catches any Pokémon on route 1 then Leon acknowledges that you don't need it.
  • Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army:
    • The game opens with your main character, an up-and-coming rookie summoner, being tested by the watchers of the Kuzunoha clan. Each test shows the player how to fight, summon, and capture demons. When the test is over, your character has the right to claim the title of "Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th" and become a full-fledged Devil Summoner.
    • In King Abaddon, Raidou must take the test again to prove that he is still up to the task of being the Capital's resident summoner. Not only does it teach/refresh the player about combat basics, it also gives you a crash course on the new features in the game, such as summoning two demons and using the dodge roll and triangle button attack.
  • In several games in the Shin Megami Tensei series, the protagonist is a fresh rookie to the world of demon summoning and hunting, and as such needs to be taught the basics of how to fight and how to get demons to join them.
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth has Grand Wizard Cartman teaching you how to fight via the in-universe combat system used for their LARPing session. He later teaches you how to properly utilizing your farts in battle by using Princess Kenny as your first target.
  • START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue: Upon encountering your first Sadness inside the Castle, the Housemaiden has a mild anxiety attack, needing a moment to talk herself through battle strategies in order to psych herself up. As Siffrin, you can opt to encourage her or tune her out. You've heard it all before...
  • In the Tales Series:
    • In Tales of the Abyss, Luke has no idea how to buy and sell things, due to living a sheltered life on his father's estate. Hilarity Ensues when he grabs some food from a shop early in the game, not knowing that he has to pay for it. Van Grants, who is Luke's sword master, delivers the battle tutorial early in the game. While it's completely justified, it's awkward to hear someone talking about "attack buttons" and "the Artes menu", in fully voice acted dialogue, as if they're perfectly normal aspects of swordplay.
    • Tales of Symphonia: Due to a Subversion of Healer Signs On Early: Early on, your Black Mage companion uses the party's current lack of a healer as an introduction to Cooking as a backup healing source.
  • The opening of Undertale has Flowey the Flower teach you the basics of movement in battle and that your HP increases with your LV, but is simply a disguised attempt to kill you (his flowery demeanor starts to crack if you choose to dodge his "Friendliness Pellets"). After Toriel shows up and saves you from him, she gives you a more direct tutorial on how you can ACT and SPARE enemies, as well as that you'll have to solve puzzles— but she ends all fights before you can really do anything and solves all the puzzles for you, at one point literally holding your hand (taking control away from you) through a puzzle whose solution is already written down for you. All this makes sense: from Toriel's perspective you're Just a Kid, and she has no intentions of letting you leave the RUINS,note  while her condescending and restrictive attitude serves to make you want to leave her care ASAP.
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, you are a just-Embraced vampire. The tutorial is framed as an older vampire, Jack, taking pity on you after you're kicked out of the building and teaching you how to cope with your new status as a member of the World of Darkness. It then gets interrupted by a faction of enemy vampires attacking; this faction is a recurring antagonist throughout the game and you get some handy tips about their methods, so you also get a quick introduction to the combat system. You also get a free lockpick. It's actually very well-integrated, and if you don't want to take the tutorial, you can tell him so early on and either shut him down entirely, or get a thirty-second rundown on the basics. The latter half of the tutorial is even tailored to take into account which Disciplines (vampire powers) your character possesses.
  • The Witcher's Prologue is a tutorial integrated with the plot, establishing character and over-arching motivation for the rest of the story. Practically every element of the rest of the game is smoothly introduced in justified contexts.
  • The World Ends with You has Neku waking up with full amnesia, having no clue what the things are that are attacking him, how the Phlebotinum pins he has work, or any of that. (Plus the little fact that he can't fight without a partner initially.) While the game does go out of the fourth wall to simply screendump you several times, it's made clear that he's learning things from scratch as much as you are - once you know the rules, he does as well. (That said, your knowledge and his aren't equatable after this point.)

    Simulation Game 
  • The first mission of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is a Justified Tutorial for the rest of the game, or at least its air-to-air parts. The player character is a freshly winged pilot on his first combat sortie, and after a crash course on the game's flight controls taking off from the runway, a lone bomber is offered forth for the player to learn to use missiles on. Other characters radio the player to let them know what it is they should do next, whether it's using the different functions of the minimap, switching to and using special weapons, or identifying mission-critical targets, two final waves spawn in for the player to intercept and shoot down.
  • The FreeSpace series has two takes on this. In the first game, you're handed a fighter and a peashooter and have live-fire training with a tutor. In the sequel (32 years later in the continuity) live training has been phased out and you're put into a 'Training Simulator Module.' The stern but fatherly instructor has been replaced by a pre-recorded, overly enthusiastic AI. In both cases, you are given an option on the Briefing Screen to skip the tutorial if you already know how to fly a space fighter.
  • Each Harvest Moon features different characters, and most of them are newbie who have just gotten into a farmwork. Players from Rune Factory have amnesia, plus they're instantly put into a farm for almost no reason.
  • Janes USAF starts any new character as a second lieutenant and the training missions feature a voice over narration from Patrick “Scooter” Davis, your flight instructor. That said, the training missions are stand alone missions, so if you are already familiar with the airplanes and weapons controls, there is nothing stopping you from jumping straight into the campaigns.
  • The MechWarrior games since 2 have tutorials available, with varying levels of justification, almost always optional.
    • In 2 and Ghost Bear's Legacy, the tutorial is an optional training zone as overseen by a bitter, cranky instructor. Since you're playing a member of the Clans who believe fully in Training from Hell, these exercises are live-fire, explaining why you can actually die in the tutorial. Accepting a tutorial presumes that you are still a trainee, though there's no real explanation for why you can choose to return to them even after you have advanced to a high rank and still get treated like dirt.
    • On the other hand, the tutorial in 2: Mercenaries is an optional, unrepeatable starting campaign that is offered to any mercenaries who want to take part as a sort of "universal basics" course. In keeping with the mercenary theme of the game, you get paid to do it, but you also have to pay for your own repairs if you manage to break anything as well as not die, because the tutorial still a military campaign with the intent of fighting pirates.
    • The tutorials for 3 are cast as classes for new recruits to the Eridani Light Horse mercenary unit, which, while understandable, is still odd since it goes over basics that even the greenest Mechwarrior should already know in-universe.
    • The tutorial for 4 has you playing your hero as a cadet, and thus actually learning the functions presented in a somewhat logical fashion—he's getting his first 'Mech and they have to teach him how to use it. Black Knight does it as a sort of hiring test for the mercenary Black Knight Legion. 4: Mercenaries changes it up somewhat by having the tutorial act as some kind of required formality for registering and activating a mercenary company (presumably the registry service wants proof you at least know what you're doing with that 'Mech). Your Deadpan Snarker main character will constantly take verbal potshots at the inanity of the process the whole time.
    • Mechwarrior Online's tutorial is cast only as a basic firing range with neither instructor nor objectives—just a bunch of inert 'Mechs standing around on one of the game's various maps, allowing the player to try out the basics of control on their own. Guided lessons are given via internet videos. Anything more advanced than moving, attacking, and reading your displays, however, is going to be learned the hard way.
    • 5 starts the campaign with a tutorial albeit with a few unusual deviations from the series' norms. Instead of a faceless instructor, the person running you through training is your father, and the tutorial cast as you shaking down a salvaged Centurion to make sure that it's combat-worthy and ready to be your first 'Mech. The tutorial quickly spirals into a Death by Origin Story when you lose your father and your unit to a surprise attack by pirates moments after the tutorial ends.
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator starts you out with training missions, with your co-pilot explaining all the controls (and unavoidable things like 'press F2 to do this' the first time it comes up). Later missions assume you know what you're doing and leave you to it.
  • The player character of Warship Gunner 2 is a freshly-minted navy officer and the first few missions are a flashback to his basic training. A later tutorial runs him through the basics of submarine navigation.
  • In No Umbrellas Allowed, Darcy and HUE give you the tutorial on how to run the former's secondhand shop as his newest employee. They'll offer you to skip it after giving it to you once, believing that you don't need their help.
  • Star Wars: TIE Fighter justified things (at least story-wise) with the player character (at least according to the book) getting to be a full-time pilot instead of a starfighter mechanic after he jumped into a TIE fighter and fended off four Rebel starfighters attacking an Imperial admiral's shuttle.
  • Averted in Steel Battalion, which features a "tutorial" stage that is intended to emulate the very beginning of Mobile Suit Gundam. After being told you will receive months of simulator training before even being allowed near the cockpit of the Humongous Mecha, a well-timed attack by the enemy occurs, and your main character says he will just use the manual to pilot it. The game is not only saying this for effect: It actually expects you to use the manual for the first, and likely subsequent, stages. However, the buttons you must use to start your mech's engine ignition are lit up on your forty-button controller in the order they should be pressed in. Just don't play the game, if you're starting out, in front of a friend who is well-versed in the basic fundamentals of mech piloting, unless you have very considerate friends. You don't get very much help at all otherwise, which is great for immersion but bad if you fail to notice the blinking buttons in your lap.
  • The game Tachyon: The Fringe has a unique approach to this. Your character, already a good pilot, is supposed to evaluate a new training officer by letting her train you. During this mission (which is entirely optional), there is a malfunction, and the training satellites start shooting at you, providing you with some combat experience. This gets turned into a Brick Joke when TNS News reports that the training officer later saved her students when the same thing happened again later.
  • Yes, Your Grace: The Action Prologue and the first eight weeks of the game are used to teach or remind the player of the game's basic ropes. While the Action Prologue takes care of "which button does what" level things, events occurring during the first eight weeks will teach the player how to invite allies and send agents to locations where they weren't specifically requested. The relative number of decisions with tangible short-term consequences is also high compared to the rest of the game.

    Sports Game 

    Stealth-Based Game 
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • The Assassin's Creed tutorial is actually quite seamlessly integrated into the game, as Desmond is being taught to use videogame-style controls to operate the Animus.
    • In Assassin's Creed II, the player still controls Desmond, who knows how the controls in the Animus work (which is like a video game). So instead of having him learn again the game will feature multiple points in the new Assassin's life, allowing a Fallout 3-like tutorial that will teach the player the controls. Specifically, the gameplay mechanics are introduced in the first two chapters as part of Ezio's life; for example, the first story memory has Ezio fist fighting on a bridge (to teach melee basics), then when Ezio goes to beat up his sister's cheating boyfriend grabbing is introduced, and more advanced moves are introduced in the second chapter when Ezio undertakes combat training at his uncle's request.
    • In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ubisoft assumes that most players are already familiar with the basic controls, so you're cast into the plot straight away with only basic on-screen prompts to guide you.
    • Assassin's Creed III introduces you to tree-running and hunting with the conceit that Connor is teaching his friend.
  • Hitman:
    • In Codename 47, Agent 47 is walked through the basics of being an assassin by the mysterious Dr. Ort-Meyer as he escapes from an asylum.
    • In Silent Assassin, 47 tromps through some ruins to get back in practice after having temporarily retired from his trade.
    • In Blood Money, the tutorial mission is placed in the context of a simple hit 47 is carrying out on a carnie.
    • The tutorial missions in Hitman (2016) take place during 47's training tests with the ICA. In this case, it makes sense that Diana would take a more active role and guide 47 through the levels.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Metal Gear Solid: Has an optional VR Training session and a special line from Snake during the main game if the player completes it. Implying he did the virtual tutorial in the submarine on the way to the enemy base. Notably the training missions were eventually expanded into a full game.
    • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker begins with Snake joining in on an ongoing training session with members of his mercenary team. The drill sergeant proceeds to explain the nuances of the controls (with particular emphasis on things that have changed, such as the inability to crawl in this game) after which the player/Snake 'demonstrates'.
    • Metal Gear Solid V opens with Snake waking up from a 9-year coma, so he's understandably disorientated. The prequel Ground Zeroes doesn't have any tutorial, as Snake is a seasoned soldier by that point.
  • The first level of Splinter Cell involves Sam 'calibrating' his experimental new suit. The button/action prompts appeared on the HUD, and the in-universe action prompts were over the radio. The sequels dispensed with the "calibration" entirely.
  • In Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror the player character (Logan) is stated as giving the new training a test run to give his opinion of it. He even tells the trainer to treat him like a new recruit and several times during the training has to remind the trainer, who says things like, "But, you know all this already." that he needs to be treated like a new recruit if he is to properly test the training.
  • The optional tutorial in Thief: The Dark Project is a flashback to Garrett's training as a child just taken from the street, and in it he's given simple tasks to do the way he chooses. Thief: Deadly Shadows' first level is a heavy-handed, mandatory tutorial where Garrett has to follow the blue footsteps on a routine job. The drop in tutorial justification subtlety is staggering.
  • This War of Mine has a justified lack of tutorial, since you're just a group of civilians trapped in a city under siege. Now you will have to scramble and learn the ropes to survive in this war-torn hellhole.

    Survival Horror 
  • Five Nights at Freddy's 3 utilizes Night 1 as a tutorial level to explain the now radically different gameplay system, as well as to showcase that not all the jumpscares are an instant Game Over in this game (a first for the series). In fact, since the actual animatronic isn't even there yet, it's actually impossible to lose Night 1.
  • The opening of Silent Hill: Downpour has Murphy beating a child molester to death with a knife and a baseball bat in order to teach the player the combat system. It's justified because it's a major plot point.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Quite a few table top games - whether role-playing games, war games, or board games, have a simplified level for a scenario which is explained in universe as an actual event.
    • Space Hulk in its original table top incarnation and re-releases, as well as its 2014 video game incarnation, uses this trope for the Space Marine player. A campaign consists of a series of missions, and the campaign is designed to start with minimal mechanics and then add a new complication each subsequent mission.
    • Paizo, producers of Pathfinder, released the Beginner's Box, which includes a sample adventure with a backstory. It is a well-crafted tutorial, with pregenerated characters and a simple set of encounters culminating in a very "gamey" final boss. Every encounter teaches the players one new idea, such as saves, skill checks, basics of combat, and so on. It provides the GM with the map for the encounter and every token to run the encounter as written.
    • Not to be outdone, with the 2014 release of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards released a similar Starter Set with a beginner's adventure, though it is not quite as playable out-of-the-box.
    • Games Workshop has had a series of introductory battles for their flagship products, Warhammer and Warhammer40000. These will invariably include a few neat minis from two factions, a history of the battle the set is meant to represent, rules for running the battles, and so on. As of early 2015, these boxed sets still prove to be popular sellers not just as a beginner's box, but also for their actual contents.
    • The 1st through 3rd edition sets of GURPS included a simple programmed solo adventure All in a Night's Work, guiding the player through the basic game concepts as they played a thief breaking into a house.
    • The Starter Set for Star Trek Adventures includes a three-mission campaign, A Star Beyond the Stars, that is organized as a walkthrough for the Game Master on how to use the game system.
    • Call of Cthulhu has used "The Haunting" for introducing new Investigators and new Keepers to every edition of the game since 1981. With the simple premise (investigate the haunted house), streamlined design (there's only a handful of important locations and named NPCs), and multiple plot hooks which can be expanded into a full campaign, this scenario is a classic for a reason.

    Third-Person Shooter 
  • Dead Space:
    • In Dead Space, the enemies don't bat an eye at head shots or even outright decapitations like in most shooters; they're vulnerable to "strategic dismemberment" instead. In the opening phase of the game, expect no less than five direct messages, from blood-scrawled advice on the walls left by victims who learned it too late, to your own suit's holographic info display, to audiologs left by the crew, telling you in no uncertain terms to cut off their limbs.
    • Dead Space 2 has a video log telling you you can rip the blades off dead necromorphs and shoot them at living ones. The same video turns up in Dead Space 3, this time being sent to your colleges to help if they run out of ammo.
  • Played With in Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. The tutorial is optional in the first level, and Matt, whose Medium Awareness and Genre Savvy are his defining traits, will actually comment on the tutorial, from mocking the very basics found in every third-person shooter to complimenting new wrinkles that will help him survive.
  • Everything or Nothing and 007: From Russia with Love share in common the "MI-6 Training," which exist to teach players how to use Bond's gadgets and execute more advanced moves in the new perspective.
  • Gears of War's tutorial involves your newly-released-from-prison veteran soldier taking the long way through the prison blocks to get back into shape and shake out the cobwebs. The sequel has you training the squad's rookie. Unique in these tutorials is that both are integrated into the gameplay and are skippable depending on the choice you make. The first game allows you to fight enemies along the way with either path you take, as the whole jail-break is merely the prologue to the rest of the game.
  • Ghostbusters: The Video Game has the Rookie capture the Sloth Ghost in the sub-basement to get players accustomed to reading the Proton Pack's readouts and to basic Ghostbusting procedures.
  • Gun has some nice twists on the tutorial. The walking and shooting part is done by your father, who is generally kind of an asshole who doesn't think anyone is as awesome as he is. So everything is 'Do this, do that, don't do that'. The horse riding and shooting part is done by a genial shopkeeper/betting man who is actually pulling a delaying tactic so his friends can ride up and kill you for your free ticket to a whorehouse.
  • The Last of Us Part II has the action tutorial take place while Ellie and her girlfriend Dina have a snowball fight with some children in the playground of Jackson, Wyoming.
  • In Second Sight, the second level (as the first is more of an Ontological Mystery introduction to the plot than anything else) sends the main character— a parapsychologist accompanying a team of commandoes as a consultant— through an obstacle course, in order to learn useful stealth and marksmanship strategies.
  • Inverted in Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, as the optional tutorial level in campaign mode consists of X2, the protagonist, retraining existing clones.
  • Transformers: Fall of Cybertron starts you off as Bumblebee. The tutorial is set up as events unfolding on the Ark while the Decepticons are raiding it. For example, testing the camera is Ratchet testing your optics after a concussion, and using the dash to avoid getting burned.
  • Warframe starts off with the player awakening from a long cryosleep, just in time for Admiral Vor to force an Ascaris device onto you. Only the timely intervention of The Lotus keeps you from succumbing to the device immediately. From there you are instructed in how to use your powers, acquire a Primary, Secondary and Melee weapon, and perform maneuvers such as wall-runs and bullet jumps. Once back in your Orbiter, you learn about other vital functions from your ship's Cephalon, Ordis, and eventually fight your way to Vor himself. Once that is complete, the Origin System opens up to the player, and new functions will come with a quick description as to how they work as the player discovers them.

    Turn-Based Strategy 
  • Nippon Ichi occasionally justifies the use of tutorials.
    • Disgaea:
    • Makai Kingdom has pre-transformation Zetta duke it out against Raiden and some mooks, and he mentions that he's mumbling to himself. You're also given the option to ignore it completely.
    • Phantom Brave starts with a still alive Ash fighting off several enemies just to show the basics. When the game starts proper, you still have to sit through a few fights' worth of lessons regarding confining, lifting and throwing.
    • La Pucelle Tactics has Sister Alouette teach Prier and Culotte the basics, because Prier is a very bad student.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance starts off with the protagonist moving from a really warm climate to a new school in the winter. Right before being Trapped in Another World, the other kids teach him how to have a snowball fight, which happens to precisely mirror the combat system employed in the Magical Land he is about to be transported to. Then he gets a second battle shortly after arriving in Fantasy Ivalice to explain the Law system.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 doesn't have Luso learn how to fight in his world. When he gets thrown into the Final Fantasy Ivalice, he lands in front of a huge Cockatrice and has to join Cid's clan in order to not die. Since Luso never used weapons and doesn't know how battles work, Cid teaches Luso how to attack, but strangely enough, also tells him how to "move" and end his turn. Even the Black Mage and White Mage tells Luso about other factors such as how to use magick (which is odd since only they can use magick at this point and Luso knows no abilities) and how speedier units generally go first.
    • The original Final Fantasy Tactics has an interesting variation. There is no integrated tutorial and the game itself leaves you to figure out the basics mostly by yourself (subtly guided by the way the game sets up each story battle). However, there is an optional tutorial mode. The reason that's a variation of this trope is because, despite being optional and acanon, it features an actual character who is referenced several times in the main game, but who only appears in this mode—the instructor Darlavon, who teaches new military recruits all of the basics. The academy he teaches at is also the one the main character went to, so it stands to reason that Ramza received his lectures off-screen.
  • The Firaxis-developed X-COM games all give you a choice in the beginning to either play a scripted tutorial mission, or a standard mission in its place. All of the tutorial missions are relevant to the story:
    • XCOM: Enemy Unknown has a stellar example with the tutorial mission, utilizing Central Officer Bradford as a way to teach the player about cover, attacking, grenades... and just how stupid it is to blunder into unseen space with the very last soldier on your squad, since only 1/4 of the soldiers on that mission survived it. While the tutorial is entirely optional (if disabled in the Settings, it is replaced with a standard non-scripted mission), it does provide some interesting Foreshadowing for the alien species to be encountered in the future. Enemy Within has its own optional tutorial mission meant to teach the player how to find and collect the new Meld substance. Unlike the original tutorial, this one is not fully scripted, as all it really requires you to do is get the Meld canisters.
    • The tutorial mission of XCOM 2 features a squad lead by Bradford rescuing the Commander from an ADVENT blacksite, teaching the player many of the same lessons as the first game did, alongside the more involved objectives to complete and the new mechanic of extracting at the end of the mission. It justifies characters being railroaded into critical mistakes an experienced player wouldn't make, since the Commander isn't yet the one giving orders. Notably, one of the Mauve Shirt members of your squad in the tutorial, Jane Kelly, was popular enough to be given more screen time in the game's expansions, and became an Ascended Extra in the next game, Chimera Squad. If you decide against playing the tutorial, you are instead given a standard randomly-generated mission, albeit one where the objective will always be to destroy an Etherial statue as a signal of XCOM's return.
    • XCOM: Chimera Squad opens with a mission in which you must rescue Mayor Nightingale, who has been taken hostage at a museum by unknown forces. Her death at the end of the mission puts the story in motion. Skipping the tutorial means that Chimera Squad never even got to make an attempt at saving her.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the player character is presented as an apprentice tactician, who is travelling the world to study military strategy. As such, the first third of the game is a tutorial, in a small story separate from that of the main game. The player is taught about the game's mechanics as they appear in the levels.
  • Advance Wars:
    • The game has a whole tutorial campaign with Orange Star Chief CO Nell explaining most of the game in a series of fights against the invading Olaf. The real campaign picks up right after with Andy, who is a new CO that justifies every additional explanation or repetition. The later games instead have the tutorial during the first couple of missions in the campaign.
    • Dual Strike justifies explaining new units in various ways. The enemy commander Kindle condescendingly reminds her soldiers how to use Black Boats (whom she views as morons, thus instructing the player by extension), the Megatank is a new invention of Green Earth that Orange Star needs briefing on, and the Stealth Unit is fresh out of R & D that no commander has ever seen before.
    • Days of Ruin features Will, who before the world-destroying meteor strike was a student at the Rubinel military academy. Since he obviously didn't get to finish school, almost everything about the combat system needs to be explained to him- and, by extension, the player.

    Visual Novel 
  • Every Ace Attorney game does this with its first case.
    • For Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the first case is Phoenix's first case as a lawyer, with his mentor and boss, Mia, showing him the ropes.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All has Phoenix get amnesia from being clunked in the head, so his client must explain what he's supposed to do.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations's first case is a flashback to Mia's second case - it had been a year since her first one, so the reasoning is that she doesn't remember how the court works very well. Mia's very first case is played through a flashback later on and the reason why she doesn't need help then is due to her claiming that she stayed up all night watching videos on how to do her job in court.
    • And with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, it is again Apollo's first case with his mentor explaining how everything works. For players, this is the first game they can skip over the tutorial.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies doubles up on this - it's both Phoenix's second case after regaining his law license (and so he's still a bit rusty), as well as new partner Athena's second case. This allows for the player to not only get taught the game mechanics, but also how Athena's psychoanalysis system works.
    • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, the first case is in the Kingdom of Khura'in, who for years had a legal system with no defense attorneys (their verdicts rely upon mystic oracles who are able to display the last moments of the deceased, and any defense attorney whose client gets found guilty suffers the same punishment as their client). Thus, Phoenix has to explain things like cross-examination to the court. Phoenix also gets to learn how the Divination Seances work, since they are both new to him and to returning players.
    • Played for Laughs later on, when Athena offers to give Apollo a tutorial on how to investigate a crime scene. If the player declines, Apollo says "I think I remember how to do it" and Athena responds "Okay! I'm sure it'll all come back to me as we go along, too," prompting Apollo to respond "Wait, aren't you the one who offered to give me an explanation?"
    • In Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Edgeworth has to explain his methodology to the eternally clueless Detective Gumshoe and sighs dramatically when Gumshoe attempts to explain the court record to him.

    Wide-Open Sandbox 
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has the tutorial sections slowly spread out throughout the game. Melee weapons are taught when you and an ally decide to go bust up a crack house, shooting when you visit a back-alley gun dealer, turf wars when Sweet enlists you to reconquer some lost territory, etc. You also have to do the pilot school before you can access the piloting missions (or legally enter the airports at all). Doesn't quite work out when the piloting school is only defeated through trial-and-error, as the starter prop plane will stall if the player goes too high. Fridge Logic ensues when you begin to ask yourself: What kind of demented pilot test is your PC being forced through? What average pilot would need to know how to do a loop-the-loop or barrel roll? Or how to blow up moving trucks from an aircraft?
  • LittleBigPlanet's first area is. It's the garden where the king and queen teach you how to play. It's just a easy level with text bubbles popping up telling you how to do X. They're skippable.
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor uses Talion training his son to fight and sneaking up on his wife to give her a gift and kiss to teach combat and stealth mechanics.
  • Saints Row
    • Saints Row has "The Playa" being newly initiated into the Third Street Saints, so the more experienced members of the gang will teach him (and the player) how to do things.
    • Saints Row 2 has "The Playa" waking up from a five-year coma in prison, so a fellow inmate suggests a prison break where they can either sneak out via the roof (which walks the player through a basic tutorial) or charge out the front (skipping the tutorial).
    • Saints Row: The Third begins in Steelport, a city run by the Syndicate that the Saints have no presence in. Most of the first chapter of the main story is Pierce walking the Boss through the core mechanics (most of which are new to the series) and introducing some of the new Activities, all framed as helping the Saints get established and taking power away from the Syndicate.
    • Saints Row IV takes place almost entirely in a virtual simulation of Steelport, so tutorials are justified because it's basically a video game within a video game.
  • Scarface: The World Is Yours does this with a flashback to the character's military training in Cuba. Then the first level starts at the stairs in the mansion... Later on, a completely within-the-Fourth-Wall (if slightly leaning on it) conversation between Tony and two Vice cops establishes the Heat system.
  • The Simpsons Hit & Run: The tutorial level, the Cola Caper, introduces the game's mechanics by having the player simply drive a short distance to the Kwik-E-Mart. The mission's story is that Homer is buying snacks after he ate all the dessert at home, and since nothing would be an obstacle for that, the mission has no time limit or any other fail state.
  • Sleeping Dogs (2012) teaches the player the ropes of the game's shooting mechanic via a forensic re-enactment of a crime scene.
  • Starbound has a tutorial that takes place on the Player Character's graduation day — which also happens to be the same day Earth is attacked and destroyed by a space monster, requiring the player character to pick up the Matter Manipulator and flee on the next available starship. Interacting with the environment and non-player characters is demonstrated before the attack; jumping, using the Manipulator, and combat are demonstrated during the evacuation (with a tentacle blocking your path that knocks you back but does no damage, requiring you to kill it with the Broken Broadsword that you pick up in a chest).

    Fan Works 
  • The Final Fantasy VII fanfiction The Zor's Pizza Chronicles has the characters having to explain battle mechanics to an incompetent boss. "Hey, that didn't do any damage!" "That's because I'm wearing a fire ring. I'm protected from fire." "This is confusing!" "Look, lets try again some other time, okay? Besides, you're already dead." (Character looks at his hit points) "Damn. Well, I'll be back!"

 
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Nekomew's Potty Trouble

Nekomew's new dad shows him where the potty is once he moves into their house, and what to do if the monsters come.

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5 (3 votes)

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