First impressions last, they say, but some pieces of art could convince you otherwise. Throughout the years, many video games have ascended to classicdom despite the average player wishing they could skip that first hour, scene or stage. Some go so far as modding their games with alternate starts, or keeping a save file perpetually just after the beginning. Here are five annoying video game openings in otherwise classic titles.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Starting off with a controversial one, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is many TES fans’ favourite entry to the series. The intro is remembered by many for setting the scene for an epic ARPG that still delights over a decade later.
However, like TES IV: Oblivion before it, that intro becomes a problem on subsequent playthroughs. It’s very long and uninteractive, it takes the divisive ‘story, then character creation’ model to an extreme. Even if you enjoyed the long and winding intro, snapping you out of the immersion to whip together the ugliest Khajit you can muster is jarring.
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But for the majority of people who’d rather not go through it anymore, there are several mods available to skip the start or begin the adventure in a completely different fashion. For those playing on Xbox 360 or PS3 such luxuries did not exist, and many (myself included) kept save files with different post-starts to avoid the slog.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Another masterpiece with an opening most people will enjoy exactly once. Like Skyrim, Read Dead Redemption 2 opens with a thematically sound slog before letting the player loose to enjoy its open-world meat.
However, unlike Skyrim, it doesn’t feature a dragon to kick the pace up a bit. Instead, you’ll listen to gristly cowboys croak at each other for a while then slowly rake your way through the snow to do some tutorial-esque missions while gristly cowboys croak at each other.
Many who are heading back to play for a second time will have intentionally forgotten what prefaces one of the greatest games ever made. And a subset of those probably went to play something else instead of endure the cold harshness of this unskippable tedium.
Deus Ex
From games with opening levels that put off experienced players to one that outright bullies new players. The opening of Deus Ex is, once again, thematically on point. You begin weak and face a seemingly insurmountable foe, Deus Ex presents this without compromise through its opening hour of gameplay.
And, of course, the opening level sees you have to sneak at a painfully slow pace with only a stun baton and a crossbow. You’ll pick up a pistol but the sound of gunfire will bring all of the level’s enemies rushing at you. And when one or two shots will kill you, making noise is a very bad idea.
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While there’s plenty to learn as you creep through the opening level, the mechanic you’ll master earliest in Deus Ex is quick saving and loading.
For RPG players used to the gentle ramping up of the challenge after learning the controls on the video game equivalent of WWE jobbers, being dunked head first into a barrel of resilient foes with better weaponry could be a real system shock. For FPS players intrigued into Deus Ex, the slow and gunless opening could also be a bit jarring.
And while credit is due for these bold decisions, it also discouraged quite a few players from actually getting into the game.
Driver (Driver: You are the Wheelman)
Driver or (Driver: You are the Wheelman in the US) has one of the boldest and most thematically consistent opening levels in a game of its era. You are supposedly ‘the wheelman’. Your first task is infiltrating the criminal underworld by demonstrating your driving skills for some bad lads in an underground carpark. The god-like skill of the protagonist is a central part of the story.
But Driver‘s opening level is far too difficult. Many have never left that garage due to the list of relatively high skill manoeuvres against a punishing timer. The player is expected to fail since they would, presumably, begin with absolutely zero experience of the game’s mechanics.
Additionally, and something we European types overlooked in our previous mention of Driver, the world ‘slalom’ in not common in the North American vernacular. The UK-based developers had grown up skipping past competitive skiing on EuroSport and overlooked that fact, too. Poor localisation handicapped an entire player base in an already obscenely difficult opener.
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And for the last time, the garage level is the first level but it’s not a tutorial. Driver has a separate tutorial in the main menu that actually tells you how to play the game.
Far Cry 2
While everyone now appreciates Far Cry 2 – mostly for the very things that turned people away in 2008 – the intro remains a sticking point. You sit in a jeep establishing the story and the gameworld as you pass the horrors of a country deep in civil war. It’s effective but it’s only really shocking and helpful the first time.
On subsequent playthroughs, it’s a colourless ten-minute slog until we meet our antagonist in a yellow haze. The subsequent half-hour fills you in on the mechanics in what is a decent taster for the game’s take on the open world shooter.
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Far Cry 2 eventually opens up into the masterpiece it is but not until it wears down your patience with that long unskippable sequence. Nevertheless, it’s ten minutes that Far Cry 2 demands a player suffer in what feels a little self-indulgent on the part of the developers.
Dishonourable Mentions
Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain has a torturous forty-minute, very literal, crawl around a hospital. And while it’s truly a trying and exhausting opener, MGS V is not really a classic. It’s a very good game but probably the worst of the 3D series. The open world is stretched thin and buried under repetitive design.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion feels like dry run for the slow and laboured pacing of TES V: Skyrim‘s opening level. There are long passages of dialogue while moving at tedious pace for what feels like hours. The unskippable nature of it all wears down the repeat player. However, it stays off the list proper as you are also free to jog on as soon as the Emperor does his thing. No Spoilers.
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Tomb Raider III‘s opening few seconds are actively hostile to the player in a way you rarely see in mainstream games. Generally, killing the player within 10 seconds is usually only desirable in games whose selling point is their brutal difficulty. And after Tomb Raider III‘s drops a player in at the deep end in terms of lethal traps and pitfalls, the game hides its first save crystal and uses camouflage to obscure progress. But it stays off its list by only getting more difficult and showing an evermore impressive contempt for you as a player. An unreasonably difficult, almost hateful, opening level it may be, but it served as a warning.
