Games That Trust Players To Figure Things Out On Their Own

Many games struggle to find the right way to teach players. Long, detailed tutorials can be boring, but being dropped into a game with no guidance is equally frustrating. The most enjoyable games strike a balance – they give you the tools you need and then trust you to learn as you play, which can be incredibly rewarding.

Often, figuring things out through trial and error is essential to enjoying these games. They don’t offer much help or guidance – sometimes none at all – but that’s actually a good thing. It lets you discover how the game works, and how to play your way, all on your own.

Don’t Starve

Spectacularly Sinister Survival

Survival games can be tough to learn at first because they’re all about making do with what you have and trying to last as long as possible. If you don’t build up your base, gather enough supplies, and manage both short-term needs and long-term planning, you won’t survive for very long. For example, a new player in Don’t Starve might struggle just to remember to light a fire before nightfall to protect themselves from the monster, Charlie.

At first, expect a lot of experimentation! You’ll likely try anything and everything – maybe hunting rabbits for food, prematurely attacking spider nests, or accidentally angering a herd of Beefalo. That’s part of what makes the game so fun – you learn by doing, figuring out what works and what doesn’t as you play. You’ll gradually discover how useful certain items are, the best order to craft essential tools, and how to use everything from the weather to animal behavior to your benefit. As you gain experience, you’ll find yourself surviving for longer and longer in each run.

Celeste

Adapt To Progress

Celeste is a visually stunning platformer where you play as Madeline, a young woman climbing a challenging mountain. As you progress, the game introduces new gameplay elements like wind, moving platforms, and enemies that chase you. This keeps each area fresh, both in how it looks and how you need to play to get through it.

The game’s level design is cleverly done. New abilities are introduced smoothly within safe areas, so you learn how they work without realizing you’re in a tutorial. Binoculars are strategically placed to let you survey large rooms and plan your approach to challenges. This thoughtful design ensures you have everything you need to overcome obstacles, even if it takes multiple tries, all without the game holding your hand.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

So Much Freedom

Many fans have played The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim countless times since it came out in 2011, and likely still remember their first, somewhat clumsy, experience. The game’s incredible freedom – letting you do almost anything – can be a double-edged sword. While you can explore and take whatever you find, much of it isn’t actually useful. As anyone who collects everything in games knows, you never know when an item might come in handy. However, Skyrim often leads to overflowing inventories filled with useless junk and Perk Points spent on abilities that don’t fit how you like to play.

It takes time and practice to truly master Skyrim. Bethesda encourages players to explore everything the game and its expansive world have to offer, figuring out which items, skills, and companions best suit their playstyle. This gradual learning process is a major reason why the game remains so popular.

Tunic

A Dungeon-Delving Adventure In The Zelda Mold

The 2022 game Tunic successfully combines elements from some of the most beloved games ever made. Visually, it strongly evokes classic The Legend of Zelda titles like A Link to the Past and the remake of Link’s Awakening, with its colorful graphics and overhead perspective. Gameplay-wise, it features a stamina system similar to Dark Souls, impacting combat, and includes checkpoints reminiscent of bonfires.

What makes Tunic stand out is how it tells its story and guides players – almost entirely through visuals. The game includes a detailed manual, but there’s a twist: it’s written in a made-up language, and you have to find missing pages hidden throughout the world to complete it. Even without fully understanding the manual, dedicated players can still figure out where to go and what to do. The story itself is captivating and mysterious, revealing a lost fox civilization that bent time and played with souls in a desperate attempt to escape death.

80 Days

Improvise Your Way Around The World

Jules Verne’s classic novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, tells the story of Phileas Fogg and his servant, Jean Passepartout, as they race to travel around the world in just eighty days. Inkle’s 80 Days is a text-based game inspired by the novel, offering a fresh take on the adventure with multiple possible outcomes. Players take on the role of Passepartout, managing money and choosing routes on a world map to keep the journey going. You must ensure Fogg stays healthy and that you don’t run out of funds. What makes the game so captivating is that every decision, and therefore the outcome of the trip, is entirely up to the player.

The game presents you with various travel routes, showing where each one leads and how much it will cost. You’ll need to carefully consider which path to choose, while also managing a limited amount of supplies that can be helpful along the way. Your decisions are key, and a smart trading system adds another layer of complexity – items bought in one city might be worth more in another, but traveling to sell them could increase your overall expenses. Stopping to gather information can provide valuable clues, but might cause you to miss important transportation. The story is told through a lot of text, and even within that, your choices impact your relationships with characters and the direction of your journey. The game doesn’t offer much in the way of instructions, so you’ll learn through experimentation and repeated playthroughs. Even after multiple attempts, 80 Days will continue to offer unexpected twists and turns.

Deus Ex

Your Objectives, Your Way

Many fans consider the original Deus Ex from 2000 to be the most open-ended game in the series, allowing players a great deal of freedom in how they tackle challenges. The game stars JC Denton, a UN anti-terrorist operative, set in a grim, near-future world. A deadly plague called the Gray Death is sweeping the globe, and various groups are fighting for control of the limited vaccine, Ambrosia. Amidst this chaos, Denton – and the player – must make difficult choices that significantly impact the story’s direction.

Beyond the story, the game lets you truly shape your experience. You can customize your character with cybernetic upgrades to match how you like to play, and complete missions using either stealth or force. Similar to the Hitman series, you’re encouraged to assess each situation and choose your own approach to dealing with enemies. You might be able to talk your way out of a jam, find a way to hack into systems to create distractions, or just go in guns blazing – the game offers complete freedom in how you tackle challenges.

Little Nightmares

Solve Macabre Mini-Mysteries

Like many games of its kind, Little Nightmares doesn’t offer much in the way of tutorials or explanations, relying instead on visual storytelling. The series excels at creating a deeply unsettling atmosphere without any dialogue, and understanding the full horror requires careful observation of the environment and background details. In the first game, you play as Six, navigating the eerie depths of a ship called The Maw, where the inhabitants have a disturbing appetite for a very specific type of meat supplied by the Janitor and his prisoners. Six manages to survive the dangers within, eventually confronting and defeating the Lady who controls The Maw, allowing her to escape.

Little Nightmares is a scary puzzle game where you explore rooms, figure out how to use objects to solve challenges, and move forward. The game doesn’t offer much help – you’ll need to pay attention to subtle clues in the environment. Plus, you’re often being chased by enemies, which sends you back to the beginning of the area if caught. For instance, escaping the kitchen with the twin chefs requires carefully climbing over piles of dishes, hiding at just the right moment, and making well-timed jumps while avoiding them. Each section of the game feels like a cleverly designed escape room, and it’s up to you to outsmart the creepy creatures of The Maw. The developers at Tarsier Studios intentionally don’t offer much assistance.

2026-01-03 06:13