At first, this was going to be just a nostalgic yearning for the manuals of yore, but lately it's gotten so bad that this is going to be a genuine rant about the outright shameful lack of manuals in games today.
Yes, I remember actual paper manuals with long descriptions on how to do everything, in-character descriptions, cast lists--those were great! The physicality is not reproducible today, when even most games are downloaded, but there could at least be an equivalent pdf or file. If it's a million-dollar AAA game, they can spare the money have a writer throw together some instructions alongside some thematic graphics.
What it should not be (and what I have seen) is extra content for which I have to pay extra money. How to play the game I just bought should not cost extra! Bonus stories and such, I understand, but the basic manual? No!
It should also not be a link to a hasty, sloppy website that does not nearly cover all of the game's possibilities. I have been forced to rely on fan-made sites, which assume I already know basics. It's truly lazy to completely ignore the manual because you assume fans will take care of it.
I know many people never read manuals and prefer to learn in-game.
Sure, there's something to be said for learning as you go, but there's
always going to be one action or some information you could more easily
find by reading. Besides, people learn differently, so redundancy
helps. And I've seen games strain mightily to elaborately contain
tutorials in their stories over the years, when so much could be simply
explained by including a dang manual.
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