One of the Pokémon games has audio settings behind an unlock.

I have uninstalled and refunded games with frustrating tutorials

At this point in life, if a game is too complex for me to understand by simply playing the game organically, I'm going to watch a YouTube video. Reading pop up menus is okay unless they physically lock you out of the game.

People won't enjoy a game unless they learn the basic features.

It's a fine line for devs between teaching the player what they need to know in order to even have a chance at enjoying the game, and jamming it down their throats.

The classic example is the game Portal. It's a perfect tutorial. The player doesn't even realize it's the tutorial.

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/analysis-of-game-concepts-and-player-learning-in-portal

I am frustrated with Cities Skylines 2, lately. Text-based tutorial with optional progress checks which is okay, but they pop up as soon as you look at a newly unlocked feature, not necessarily when you are ready to build the feature.

Sometimes I feel this, but the opposite is also true. I have a friend who will play a game for less than half an hour, declare it trash, and then complain the entire time because he thinks the mechanics are broken because he never bothered to play the single player mode where the game teaches you how the weapons, vehicles, and planes all work. It makes playing virtually any game with him a total drag unless he actually spends a bit of time in it. And then suddenly, he actually likes it.

He's declared a bunch of games trash, played them for longer than a few sessions, and then puts 100 hours in it once he's been forced to actually understand how the game works x3

Subnautica, Deep Rock Galactic, The Forest, Divinity 2: Original Sin, and Baldur's Gate 3, all trash until he actually put time into them, and then really liked them. Somehow, he put 500 hours into Elite Dangerous, lol.

I can’t say I agree with this take.

I’ve played some games where the hero gets all of their tools from the outset, and it ends up being really hard to figure out when to use each one. Comparatively, when you slowly unlock things during tutorials, you’re building a mental framework of how combat should go, and on each unlock, get some time to work out how that fits in.

In fact, it’s something I think is an issue with fighting games and their competitive-only mindset. People play the 20 tutorials in quick sequence, get confused by a Reverse Upper Back-Airdodge-Cancel input that’s only going to happen in high-level play, and feel overwhelmed.

Get bored with games SO quickly. Part of how to keep interest is figuring out on my own how the game works. And I can, on my own, figure out games, software, very quickly.

Too many phone games try to make you sit thru insufferable tedious tutorials. So you're not only depriving me the chance to figure out on my own, you're also insulting my intelligence. Any game does this, instant uninstall.

can suck my nuts

Present them.

I replayed FF 13 a while ago, I was absolutely shocked how long it took to be able to customize role settings for the party members.

As much as I love AC6 I too was baffled as to why multiplayer was locked until half the game was complete.

I have to say that this highly depends on the type of games you like, and if the unlocks are well designed into the story.

In general most of the types mentioned are cashgrabs, but I enjoyed an indie game called Evoland. You can 'unlock' better graphics and audio as part of the game, watching the evolution of gaming

In Starfield (and FO4 for that matter) basic game functions are locked behind perks, you need to be like level 30 before you can start playing the game

Yeah, local multiplayer or custom hosted multiplayer should be unlocked right away. Online matched multiplayer can be skill/tutorial gated just fine.

In ac6 it's about the inventory and not the gameplay. Before the multiplayer unlocks you simply don't have enough stuff to go online to fight.

Yes, it would be nice if they had some kind of fixed inventory multiplayer mode, but the main game is about getting stuff and early on you don't really have enough for a decent fight.

GT7 makes sense. There needs to be some barrier to make sure people know how to drive the cars without just immediately jumping into the game.

Tutorials under 1hr are ok. Once they go over that I stop playing.

I thought you were talking about mobile games or something locked behind a paywall before I read further and realized you're mad that multi-player is "locked" behind someone completing a tutorial. I haven't played either of the two games you mentioned by name but I would imagine that they are complicated/unique enough where a tutorial is warranted. It's kind of annoying if you just want to hop in and go, sure, but if "most of the fucking game" content consists of the beginning tutorial then you bought the wrong game to begin with.

I recently restarted Borderlands and even though I have multiple characters leveled to the top they make me start at the basic floor to prove I can play or something when I picked a new character. Annoying