(sorry Kemonono, not trying to ignore you here, but I’ve been writing this unrelated response for nearly an hour)
Good article, though as nat42 says multiple approaches are being conflated here as roughly the same.
I’ve actually been playing AC Origins, and I too have found it annoying how frequently they pop up with these tips. I’d like it if they were a bit more unobtrusive, or could be turned off (perhaps with a contextual “turn these off” button when it appears). I definitely CAN understand their purpose though–I’ve never been in a place where those specific prompts were needed, but occasionally there have been others that were useful, such as the wall breaking one. However, like mentioned they should be shown after some time rather than immediately.
Much the same for Super Mario Odyssey. It should at least give you the chance to take these actions without prompting you about them.
I would like to point out, however, that this can be a design decision–and not in the sense of “dumbing things down.” In some games, the player exploring the controls to find out what their character can do is an important part of the experience. In others, it’s not a part of the experience at all.
Consider DMC or Platinum Games…games. These character action games are all based around the character performing these stylish and often very precise combos. The challenge in these games is not in figuring out what the character can do. The challenge is in manipulating the character properly to do what you want them to.
In the games above, you’re told pretty much explicitly how to do each combo. The challenge comes from implementing them. So in this case it’s more than reasonable to tell the player how to perform each action
Shadow of War sounds like the most egregious transgression by far, however. In my opinion it’s the worst of all of them, because it’s not just the game telling the player what options they have, but the game telling the player how to play. That should definitely be left up to the player to figure out, with such explicit tips possibly being mentioned in a bestiary or something.
One game that did it rather nicely was Deus Ex Human Revolution. When you got to a situation where a tutorial might be shown, a prompt flashed telling the player there was a tutorial available. You could choose to watch it or skip it.
