The concept of an achievement isn’t a bad one. Did you do something cool or difficult? Here’s a little digital trophy for your efforts! It’s basically just a tiny shot of dopamine and a bragging rights certificate.
Despite how innocent these are, achievement hunting has garnered its own little subculture among gamers. I used to be a dedicated hunter myself. I mean, come on; few things feel better than a shelf full of trophies, even digital ones. Besides, the challenge of actually gathering all of the achievements for a game is satisfying in its own right.
A good achievement needs to mark two boxes. Box one: it needs to be challenging to unlock. Box two: it needs to be fun to unlock. Two very simple objectives.
On paper.
One of my favorite examples of this comes from ‘Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor,’ with the ‘Rise and Fall’ achievement. In order to get this trophy, you need to be killed by an uruk. Afterwards, you’ve gotta help him rise the ranks by killing other orcs and uruks until he becomes a Warchief. For the final step: kill him. It’s a fun challenge that makes you engage with the game’s Nemesis system, carefully planning out your every move and protecting your target along the way.
Failing that, achievements should highlight more minor aspects of the game. Like finding an Easter egg. ‘Psychonauts’ achievements are great at this; they encourage you to appreciate all the tiny little details in the game that you might miss on a casual playthrough, such as being able to recreate Oleander’s opening speech or using the Clairvoyance power on every NPC.
The best achievements encourage the player to engage more deeply with the game’s content or mechanics. Be it in finding something fun, tackling a great challenge, or trying out new ways to explore the game’s mechanics. In such cases, these little dopamine shots can add a lot to a game for people who are willing to go that extra mile.
But then there are the other kind of achievements. The kind that demand too much time, patience, or skill from the players. The ones that are most often completely broken or just flat out infuriating.
For me, the most boring kind of achievement is the easy kind. The kind the game gives you just for playing. Did you beat the tutorial? Good job, sport! Here’s a gold star! After a while, these just become background noise. The occasional little ding in the corner to inform you of your progress.
Telltale games are the perfect example of this. Did you choose to play nice guy Bigby in ‘The Wolf Among Us?’ Here are some achievements. Now go back and play asshole Bigby for the others ones!
Boy, I really had to work for that one…
Worse are the tedious ones. The achievements that require you to perform a long, tedious grind or a hyper specific objective. Get a thousand kills, parry fifteen attacks, defeat a boss with your feet while spinning in place and singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ dumb shit like that. Multiplayer games tend to have these the most; get so many points or reach the highest rank for a little silver .png you’ll never look at again! Don’t you feel accomplished?!
One of the worst achievements I’ve ever tried to unlock is from ‘The Last Guardian,’ with the ‘Lightning Emissary.’ It’s a simple challenge: beat the game in five hours or less. The problem is, with the game’s frustrating controls and unique mechanics with your giant animal friend, it’s damn near impossible to actually complete this challenge! It boils down more to luck than skill; unlocking it is such a massive pain that only 0.4% of players on PlayStation have actually gotten it!
God bless, you remarkable soldiers.
Does a bad set of achievements ruin a game? By no means. They’re extra optional challenges, not critical pieces of game design. The only real issue one might have is that the popup could be considered disruptive to the gameplay experience, and even then, if you feel that way, you can just turn them off via the system settings.
Even so, they’re intriguing to think about. Even something as small and inconsequential as an achievement can require planning, work, and foresight on the part of the developers. All so the player can unlock a digital trophy to put on a digital shelf and feel just that little bit more accomplished.
Or to utterly break their soul. Usually that one.
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