Last year was an interesting one when it came to Xbox achievements, as Microsoft ended up making a few important rule changes after certain publishers began trying to make their achievements overly easy to acquire. In some cases, thousands of Xbox achievements were being stacked across multiple versions of the same game!
Even though those rules are in place, there's still a bit of controversy as we head into 2024. Today, True Achievements has picked up on 18 games that have each received a new set of achievements equalling 1,000G, all incorporated as part of title updates. The vast majority of these (16 of them) are from the indie publisher eastasiasoft, and because they've also had other updates in the past, a lot of these games now total 4,000G altogether.
These are the specific Xbox games that have all received these updates:
- #SinucaAttack
- Akinofa
- Blow & Fly
- Cake Invaders
- Cave Bad
- Color Pals
- Hatup
- Many Faces: Console Edition
- Null Drifter
- Paradox Error
- Pity Pit
- Project Starship
- Rayland
- Sissa's Path
- Squad Killer
- Taco Tom 2
- Takotan
- Void Gore
From what we can see, these all appear to be pretty easy achievements to acquire, but they don't necessarily break the rules that Microsoft put in place in 2023. For example, publishers need to avoid making all their achievements unlockable within a few minutes, while they also need to make players explore and engage with the game's content, and it's very possible that each of these titles is abiding by those requirements.
Nevertheless, it's definitely a controversial topic for Xbox achievement hunters, as these games make up tens of thousands of gamerscore altogether. There are some Xbox fans who enjoy playing titles like these and maximising their points total, but others clearly feel they're an unfair method of surpassing other Xbox fans on the gamerscore ladder.
It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft puts any additional rules in place as we progress through the year...
How about you? What do you think about all of this? Let us know down in the comments below.
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Comments 19
I'm very, very, very bitter about and detest Xbox achievements for many reasons. Plus I'm NOT an achievement hunter in ANY shape or form. So my opinion is extremely biased on the subject.
I own more of those than I dare to admit.
@GuyinPA75 I personally feel like Achievements/Trophy stagnated gameplay design choices as developers now add "padding" for the sake of the Achievement/Trophy.
In other words, games are now designed around Trophy/Achievement hunting.
I know some people really like them, but Nintendo has done just fine without them. Nintendo designs everything around the fun of the game and not for the sake of creating a checklist to fill out.
That isn't to say games are dull because of Achievement/Trophies, I just feel like sometimes developers use them as a crutch. Just make the game fun: Achievements/Trophies be damned.
Weird - never even heard of these games but wonderful if you got the bonus rewards!
I wish more games would be updated with new achievements all the time.
@GuyinPA75 I'm a (mostly) reformed achievement hunter and think there's some games that do it brilliantly and it gives good reasons to play a game a certain way that made me love these games more and appreciate their systems. E.g. A Plasma Cutter only run in Dead Space or an Umbrella only run in Deaths Door.
Sadly most achievement lists suck the life out of games and then there is dross like this that makes achievement hunting for a larger gamerscore even more meaningless than it originally was.
@GamingFan4Lyf I partly agree. But I don't think comparing Nintendo is a good example. Their design ethos has always been about FUN first. I don't think it's achievements that have changed that for everyone else.
Not do I think most devs design around achievements. But they do try to shoehorn achievements into their games, often badly. It's the opposite in fact, too often they are an afterthought, when if done well they can be additive to the experience.
Are any of those games decent? Judging the book by the cover and the shovelware marketing ploy of easy achievements I would say no.
I like collecting achievements when I enjoy the game, this looks like a whole other level.
Meh only time I would care is if they did one of them rewards promotions that translates achievement points to reward points....and given rewards have been dialed back i doubt we will See that again
@GuyinPA75
Very very verrrry bitter eh?
And what did Xbox achievements do to you as a child?
I will admit that I've played manys a game long after I would have otherwise put it down in order to get an achievement or two, but I'm proud of that time spent! Plus, some great stories about them and allow me to engage with a game differently. It's a shame they've been whored at times but sure this is life.
@GamingFan4Lyf Now see, I view it as the opposite - Achievements & Trophies attached to things I normally might not do make me more likely to at least try them - maybe do a Side Quest I didn't think sounded interesting, or play a game through on harder difficulties. In fact it's the reason I rarely 100% Nintendo games - the reward is usually just a pop up saying 'You did it!' if even that. Well at least with an Achievement/Trophy other people can see I got the meaningless pop up, right? It's a small thing but it makes a surprising difference. And now if people find the whole thing pointless, they can just turn off the notifications for them games like they always did before the idea.
Some people seem to buy everything to have a high GS. I like them but not in a way I’m going to buy shovelware to get them.
@Pusher2021 This.
Obviously, if someone's an avid achievement hunter, fill your boots. But buying crap purely to quickly boost an arbitrary number on your profile is just sad. No one cares either way if you hit 2,000,000G; you didn't have to play countless cheap pieces of shovelware (which I guarantee you did not enjoy playing) to try and impress us.
I wish Sony would take this kind of initiative with the amount of garbage shovelware on Playstation.
I used to care about it, i would buy these types of games to boost it. But i cant ever say i did it to impressany of you lol. It just gave me a goal to work for in whatever game I was playing. I've cared less in the last couple years about collecting them. I always loved the people that would call it a waste of time. "Spoiler Alert" nothing you do is gonna matter in 50 years. Worry about yourselves and do what you want lol
@shoeses Attaching to side quests I think is fine, chances are side quests good world building and have beneficial rewards. Having an achievement for beating the game at a higher difficulty is good as it gives a reason to challenge yourself. But I don't consider those as things to do for the sake of Achievement/Trophy it's more tying them to something in the game that "fits" the game.
Creating collect-a-thons where you have to find 300 baubles of X type and 100 baubles of Y type is terrible! Those are the gaming decisions that make my eyes roll because they feel completely out of place in the game and are clearly there to pad playtime.
@GamingFan4Lyf Ah, see I don't buy anything I haven't heard of in some way, and I can imagine a lot of games like that being in that lot. The closest to that I can think of is like, those obviously bad movie tie in games from the 360 Era with random meaningless collectibles, like the one for the Captain America movie you collected Fabergé eggs for some reason.
Couldn't imagine playing a bunch of shovelware just to grind out achievements. What's the point?
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