The OG Driver tutorial has traumatised a generation

Nothing brings people together quite like shared trauma, as players of the original Driver game will tell you.

In a recent Reddit post reminiscing about the game, fans came together to explore the unbridled rage they all dealt with while trying to complete the game’s tutorial. Spoiler alert: controllers flew across the room for a lot of players.

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Released in 1999, Driver takes gamers on a tour of four cities – Miami, New York, San Francisco, and LA – with gameplay and storytelling which some can't help but compare to the Grand Theft Auto series. Comparing Driver with the later released GTAs, it’s undeniable that this 90s rage-inducing banger influenced Rockstar Games' development of the series.

Although the game was a commercial success, gamers are still having flashbacks to those moments when, overwhelmed by anger and/or confusion, they all but gave up on this action-packed driving game. “Eat your heart out, Dark Souls. This is the REAL tutorial boss,” joked one user. Another poster asked fellow gamers to imagine what the game was like playing as someone whose first language isn’t English, “Now, imagine playing that as a child who barely knows english, who doesn't know what the numbers signify. I tried it multiple times, and quit. One day, I decided to play until I finished it all, just by trying stuff. Good thing I did, it was a great game.”

It sounds like a difficult task, though one they eventfully accomplished due to their perseverance. Still, while this particular user felt at a disadvantage, some gamers are claiming it didn’t matter if there was a language barrier or not, the game was still hard. “It’s ok. I was a kid who knew English and had no clue what a Slalom was until I asked my dad,” replied a sympathetic user.

The only person who didn’t seem too damaged by the aggressiveness of Driver’s tutorial was Redditor Halvus_I, who simply posted, “Every time I see these posts, my pride in accomplishing it on my own grows.” We can just picture the smug expression on their face as they typed that, and fair play to them, it sounds like that smugness is well deserved.