Adventure · October 1, 2015
The Beginner’s Guide (2015)
The Beginner's Guide is a narrative video game from Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable . It lasts about an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives. Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they do not understand.
Adventure releases from 2015
64 Adventure titles launched in 2015 — top 6 by review volume.
Position in Adventure
| Metric | This title | Genre position |
|---|---|---|
| Review volume | 22.0k Steam reviews | Top 11% in Adventure |
| Positive rating | 88% positive | Genre average: 87% — this title sits in top 61% |
| Metacritic | 76/100 | Genre average 77 — top 64% of Adventure titles |
| Engagement hours | 2 h average | Top 90% for session depth among Adventure |
Peer Adventure titles
Comparable titles in the same genre and review-volume band — ranked by Steam positive percentage.
Community Tag Signals
Tag weights reflect how many Steam users voted each descriptor — larger pills = stronger consensus.
- Story Rich · 317
- Walking Simulator · 314
- Narration · 285
- Indie · 275
- Atmospheric · 236
- First-Person · 209
- Short · 198
- Singleplayer · 185
- Abstract · 151
- Adventure · 147
- Surreal · 139
- Psychological · 121
- Experimental · 121
- Emotional · 119
- Great Soundtrack · 112
Reception Metrics
Steam community
88%Very Positive · 22.0k reviews
19.4k positive · 2.6k negative
Metacritic
76/100 critic aggregate
Metacritic user score
7.5/10
Curator recommendations
19.0k
Press Quotes
“The Beginner's Guide is one of the most daring and creative commercial games to come out in a good long while...a masterclass in character-driven storytelling.” Eurogamer “Few game developers have ever ventured such an open-hearted project about human frailty – and knocked it out of orbit.” The Washington Post “I've been thinking about this game a lot for the past 36 hours. It demanded I think about it, at first only superficially, but later more substantively. I mulled over a…
Localization Coverage
Interface / Subtitles (5)
- English volume_up
- French
- German
- Spanish - Spain
- Russian volume_up
Full audio (2)
- English
- Russian
Engagement Profile
All-time avg
2h
brief (under 5 hours)
Median
2h
Typical completion time
2-week avg
1h
Current engagement
Release & Availability
| Release date | Oct 1, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Everything Unlimited Ltd. |
| Publisher | Everything Unlimited Ltd., Klei Publishing |
| Base price | $4.99 -50% |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Estimated owners | 1M–10M |
| External links | Official site · Support · [email protected] |
Features & Capabilities
Community
- Remote Play on Tablet
Accessibility
- Captions available
Input & Comfort
- Partial Controller Support
Other
- Single-player
- Family Sharing
Editions & Packages
Buy The Beginner's Guide