10 Worst Video Game Tutorials Everyone Hated

4. Assassin's Creed III

Assassin's Creed III has such a soul-drainingly boring tutorial it actively lessens the quality of the entire game - because close to half of it is effectively one big, long tutorial.

It's a tutorial so pervasive and excessive it makes you question the very nature of video game tutorials, and it becomes tough to figure out where said tutorial ends and the actual game begins.

After beginning the game as Desmond for a brief tutorial, players are then forced into the shoes of Haytham Kenway for the next two-ish hours, where Desmond's traversal tutorial is more-or-less repeated alongside a series of snoozily basic tutorial set-pieces. For some reason, it's a solid hour into the game before you get to do any significant combat.

Clearly the intent here was to make the game's tutorials story-driven, but it was a gossamer-thin attempt which only prolonged teaching mechanics that were incredibly simple to grasp in the first place.

And even when you finally gain control of protagonist Ratonhnhaké:ton, you're initially forced to play him as a child for a tutorialised game of hide-and-seek, and after several more tutorials for tree climbing and hunting, you're again forced to prove you can carry out the traversal you already learned in the prior two tutorial sections.

By the time you're finally kitted out in assassin's garb, a solid five hours have passed, placing you close to the game's mid-way point.

Considering that this is the third entry into a hit annualised AAA franchise, anything beyond a cursory, skippable tutorial sequence would've been overkill, and so treating players like idiots across five mostly-tedious hours was inexcusable.

Thankfully Ubisoft listened to the vocal criticisms from fans, as the fourth game, Black Flag, took a decidedly leaner approach to its tutorials.