Between work, sleep, errands, and other demands, the average gamer doesn’t have as many hours as they’d like for their hobby. When you finally get the time, there’s a nearly endless bounty available: ambitious narratives, professional voice acting, character customization, adaptive simulations, deep lore, and more.

This is great, but please, I beg you: Let me skip ahead. Starting a game I’ve already played once before, or would otherwise be familiar with, only to hit cutscenes, tutorials, and low-risk levels meant to train you—just stop. I’ve halted a number of games, games I would otherwise enjoy, because of their outsize preambles. It’s not an entirely new problem, but I can’t believe it hasn’t been worked through yet.