You walk up to a holographic interface, buzzing with life as a woman in a HEV suit welcomes you to the training course. You’re new, and before you get your hands dirty dealing with the otherworldly experiments inHalf-Life’sstory, you have to know the basics. For a scientist in a top-secret facility underground in New Mexico, far off the beaten track, that means handling a gun, diving under giant pipes, and learning to use a state of the art jump pack. It’s a bit extreme for an egghead, but you don’t want to crack under the pressure.
Half-Life’s opening is a brilliant tram ridethrough a facility to show that this isn’t just another arena shooter with a vague plot stringing together rooms full of demons, but a living, breathing world. However, we’re still a blank canvas protagonist who can conquer insurmountable odds despite beinga completely ordinary person with a ponytail.The training course gives that opening more context and substance. He’s prepared and knows how to handle a top-of-the-line arsenal, so it’s no wonder he so readily picked up a crowbar and went to town on those headcrabs.
We see where one of the missing HEV suits has gone, learn the ins and outs of gameplay, and get to see another side of Black Mesa before it’s under siege by a fleeing alien army. It lets you peer into the satirical tone before the world comes crashing down, preparing you for the story as much as for which buttons to push. It’s how a tutorial should be - an organic introduction rather than a hand-holding string of lessons clearly directed by the developers.
Helldivers 2is the closest a tutorial has come in 26 years to capturing Half-Life’s spirit. Clearly inspired by Starship Troopers, the war effort against the bug swarm is getting out of hand and foot soldiers are desperately needed. There’s no time to spend years training the best, so rookies are thrown into haphazard obstacle courses, barreling through the basics, and hoping it’s enough.
Where Half-Life has scientists peering in from windows, scribbling notes as Gordon fails the same jump ten times, Helldivers 2 has the training sergeant yelling commands like an over the top Full Metal Jacket parody. It sets the tone of a clear satire on the military-industrial complex, poking fun at the macho bravado of the soldier life.
We’re introduced to a cardboard cutout squadmate who, with a glint in their fiberboard eyes, says they’re happy to meet us. Only to be blown up moments later as the drill instructor gleefully teaches us that our friendswilldie.
A tutorial could all too easily fall into the trap of laying out commands like a robot, telling us X does Y and having us do it three times to complete a quota. Well done, you’ve learned something. But Helldivers 2 uses this moment to teach us how to revive fallen comrades by calling for reinforcements, while simultaneously setting the stage for its world.
Here’s your REAL lesson, soldier: squadmates can and will perish tragically all the time.
The callousness of the people in charge sending countless newbies to die on the frontlines, telling us to get over it and bury our feelings, immediately clues you in on Helldiver 2’s personality. Like Half-Life, we’re learning about the world as much as we are the mechanics, and it’s far more memorable than a pop-up telling us what to do.
The sergeant brings so much to the table, much as holographic Gina did, remarking that this obstacle course isdefinitelyrealistic and absolutely training us for the real deal, because alien bugs stand still and are kept in enclosures so that we have time to hurl grenades at them. It’s a level of self-awareness that fits Helldivers 2’s narrative, matching the cutscenes and news broadcasts littered throughout its story.
The last thing you want from a tutorial is to be bored. They should ease you into a game but still entertain, otherwise it’s a slog you’re dragged through before you get to the action. Like anything in life, first impressions for a game are vital, and a slow patronising crawl doesn’t instil hope. But all these years later, I have fond memories of Half-Life’s tutorial, and I’ve no doubt I’ll cherish my first time on Helldivers 2’s obstacle course, because both made the mundane an interesting part of their worlds.
