A new patent filed by Electronic Arts indicates that they are working on an adaptive in-game tutorial assistant to work across their games. The patent was filed by EA on May 6 of this year and has just come to light finally now. The abstract of the patent states:
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a tutorial system that can aid a user in performing various game commands in response to different game states in a virtual game environment. As the user plays the game, various game states may be encountered. A tutorial engine may, based on a current game state, determine one or more game commands to be recommended to the user, based on historical information of the user and a game state model, wherein the game state model maintains associations between game states and different segments of users. The user is recommended relevant game commands during the normal course of gameplay, based on their own gameplay history and on game commands commonly performed by other users of the game application.
This description suggests that EA's assistant will be able to react and adapt to the current in-game environment and situation to allow it to provide information that is directly relevant to what you are doing in that game at that moment. This means that rather than a tutorial that goes over things in the game you have already picked up on or have performed without being shown by the game yet, you will only get tutorial information about commands and actions you are struggling with or have not performed yet. This should mean that you will encounter less frequent, but more useful tutorial information that would ideally only trigger when the assistant notices you struggling.
There has been no actual announcement from EA on this patent, so there is no way of knowing how far along this technology might be to being implemented, or even if it will be. Technology like this is a great way to allow for making games more accessible for people who might struggle with certain types of games by providing them with more tutorial help while letting more experienced players play the game with fewer interruptions for things they already know.
What do you think of this potential adaptive tutorial assistant? How do you think it might impact game design for games that would look to use this technology? Let us know in the comments below!
