Monolith Soft, apparently hearing the negative player feedback on Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s tutorial, made some drastic improvements to the tutorial in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (XC3). While not perfect, the sentiment to the changes were positive with many calling it a massive improvement. A very impressive and important achievement considering XC3 is a 100+ hour game filled with menus and mechanics.

But on August 9th Stephen Totilo (former Kotaku Editor-in-chief) tweeted about their struggle with simply understanding the Fusion Arts tutorial in XC3.

This shows the XC3 tutorial is causing undue friction despite the improvements on its predecessor. And if there’s friction for an industry veteran then it’s safe to assume there’s friction for newer players. Friction like this increases risk of player churn and makes re-onboarding difficult. It can also skew game balance if the player decides “they’re just not gonna learn or use that mechanic“.

This disparity in opinions highlighted that there are opportunities to iterate on this tutorial. So let’s iterate!

A quick note: Please take the practicality of these iterations with some salt. Video games are complex amalgams. My iterations are limited to what appears straightforward. But there’s little predicting how difficult – or impossible – these change could be. This tweet from John Hopson summarizes:

John Hopson’s tweet exemplifies the considerations needed when doing armchair research and/or development. (Twitter).

The best damage output prior to Fusion Arts comes from Art canceling. You can “cancel” an auto-attack into an Art attack using “Art canceling”. Art canceling is when you prematurely end the auto-attack’s animation by using an Art. This saves time, dealing damage slightly faster. But you cannot cancel an Art into another Art – at least not until you unlock Fusion Arts.

This flowchart shows the standard attack options a player has in XC3. The Fusion Art branch is only usable after the Fusion Arts tutorial.

The Fusion Arts tutorial is teaching the following:
Fusion Arts require a Class Art and its symmetrical Master Art charged. Fusion Arts not only combine the damage and effects of both Arts, but can also be canceled into other Arts. This again results in faster damage output but also more strategic depth.

It’s easy to appreciate how important of a step Fusion Arts are in mastering XC3’s combat system. So where should we start with making iterations?

This Fusion Arts tutorial is primarily text based. UX writing concepts like using succinct language and leading with the main point of the message are vital for this iteration. UX writing decisions should come from user research data, but that’s out of scope for this project.

Game Maker’s Toolkit’s (GMTK) video “Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?” is a primary resource for this project. Two topics in the video are especially relevant: “leverage familiar things”, and “show don’t tell”. The former is about using pre-existing knowledge to minimize cognitive load. The latter emphasizes teaching with player action instead of talking at the player.

I also wanted to study how other games handle their tutorials. I found similar tutorials in the Game UI Database, including tutorials from Resident Evil 4 (2023), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom.

These tutorials highlight key words and use input iconography to help the player recognize familiar things. This reduces cognitive load by associating new concepts with preexisting knowledge, making the learning process easier.

Some of these tutorials display multiple images, or feature annotation over the image. Leveraging visuals in addition to text is an important part of efficient teaching. The aforementioned GMTK video quotes Justin Ma, one of the developers of Into the Breach:

“You could type out a hundred times, ‘Damages a tiles and pushes adjacent tiles,’ but showing that little animation of them moving is a thousand times more effective”

– Justin Ma

With these three concepts in hand (UX writing, leveraging the familiar, show don’t tell), and multiple tutorials to reference, I started making iterations.

Below is the first slide, rebuilt in Figma. It’s two sentences long, totaling 32 words.

Click and drag the arrows in the middle of the image to swap between the original tutorial slide (re-created in Figma) and my iterations.

The first sentence explains a lot. It has an introduction, context, and even the conditions to use Fusion Arts. The second sentence only explains the mechanics of Fusion Arts. These sentences are lopsided, with first sentence explains too much and the second not explaining enough.

There’s also a screenshot showing the game’s HUD when a Fusion Art is ready. But the HUD is small and opaque with a noisy background, making it hard to read.

My iteration does a few things differently. It’s two sentences long but slightly shorter at 31 words.

The first sentence summarizes the main point of the message to introduce Fusion Arts. This is a much shorter sentence, focused on action with no passive voice.

The second sentence then explains both the mechanics and conditions to use Fusion Arts. I also switched the word “paired” for “symmetrical”. It’s more syllables but it emphasizes the strict relationship between Class Arts and Master Arts.

My biggest change is adding highlighted words and iconography. This is an impractical change that would not be implemented late in development – but it’s an important addition for efficient learning and leveraging familiar things.

I also sketched an idea for a new supporting image. This image has annotations, showing and drawing attention to the Fusion Arts modal. I would also darken the background of the image to emphasize focus on the HUD.

The second slide, seen below, is single sentence with 27 words.

Click and drag the arrows in the middle of the image to swap between the original tutorial slide (re-created in Figma) and my iterations.

This sentence is simply too long. The beginning uses some awkward language, and the list is challenging to read. The list details the 3 types of Fusion Arts cancel interactions, but doesn’t summarize the explanation.

The supporting screenshot shows the visual effect when a move can be chain canceled. This is an important concept, but doesn’t aid what the text is trying to teach.

My iteration breaks this into 3 sentences but keeps the 27 word count.

The first sentence, again, focuses on the main point of the message. Arts couldn’t be canceled before this tutorial. But now, with Fusion Arts, the player has more freedom in how they approach combat.

The following two sentences define how much freedom the player now has. This is same list of cancel options, but separated by action. These sentences give us space to highlight why this is important, and how much deeper combat now is.

And again, this slide used the impractical but powerful highlights and iconography.

I also switched the screenshot for a picture of the combat flowchart in an effort to “show don’t tell”. This image supports the explanation below it, helping teach these new concepts. This image is a little boring, and should be stylized to match XC3’s aesthetics.

With the slide iterations complete, we can take a look at the second half of the tutorial. There’s not much in this section that can be iterated on without leaning hard into armchair design. But we can still cover what’s good and needs improvement in the Fusion Arts tutorial next steps!

After closing the second slide the player is prompted with a to-do list for using their first Fusion Art. This is a fantastic next step because it asks the player to take action instead of presenting information at them.

The downside is there’s little physical action required; you wait for Arts to charge and use a Fusion Art once ready. There’s only one Fusion Art to use, so there’s no decision making involved. This is hand-holdy, but can’t be changed without major adjustments to the game as a whole (i.e. changing the combat encounter to require a specific combination of Fusion Arts).

That’s the finale of the Fusion Arts tutorial, but we don’t have to end on a negative! XC3 has an in-game codex of every tutorial, complete with re-playable combat. This is a rare and extremely beneficial (though likely costly) design choice. A tutorial codex that’s always available to players is a great tool for re-onboarding players and any player who wants a reminder or practice.

The final product is a prototype built in Figma and can be viewed here. This includes the original tutorial slides rebuilt in Figma and my iterated slides.

This is where this project ends, though next steps would include A/B testing the Fusion Arts tutorial slides with players with varying levels of Xenoblade Chronicles and video game experience.

I did test the slides with a convenience sample of friends and family with many levels of video game experience. Results all favored the iterated slides, with many reporting an easier time understanding the core message of the iterated tutorial. These results should be taken with skepticism, but are promising for future research.