From small indie titles all the way up to triple-A behemoths like Call of Duty, just about every game now comes with a pile of Gamerscore that is begging to be unlocked. Everyone recognizes the familiar chime of an Xbox achievement unlocking, but few go out of their way to commit to achievement hunting and have a 100% completed game.
Starting achievement hunting can be a daunting process. After all, achievements can be difficult, unclear, and easy to mess up when you aren’t sure how to complete them. In the spirit of making your achievement hunting journey as painless as possible, here are some tips and tricks to start you off.
Be Prepared
Once you think you might want to achievement hunt a game, you’ll need to figure out exactly what hunting it is going to entail. The last thing you want is to play through the game blind, only to find out you need to replay the entire game again to get one achievement you missed.
Luckily, there are a few websites that provide achievement lists alongside detailed guides and roadmaps for completing the list in the most efficient way. The best of these is Xboxachievements.com, thanks to its ultra-clear roadmap format that makes it easy to quickly get an idea of how hard a game will be to hunt.
It also quickly shows you how long-hitting 1000G will take, how many playthroughs you’ll need to do, and if there are any online trophies, all of which are vital pieces of info that you’ll need to know before you start a hunt.
Know Your Enemy
There are a few types of achievements that give achievement hunters more trouble than anything else. Make sure to keep an eye out for these any time you look at an achievement guide or roadmap.
Missable Achievements
Missable achievements require the most attention of any achievement in a game’s list. Their status as ‘missable’ means that you will have to complete a large chunk of the game again if you fail to unlock it at a certain time.
You’ll see these all the time in games that don’t have a chapter select option, where missing a collectible will mean that you have to play the entire game to find it and earn the trophy that corresponds to it.
These also pop up in games that don’t have collectible trophies, so make sure you check a roadmap before starting and follow a guide to make sure you don’t miss an achievement and have to complete the whole game again to get it.
Online Achievements
Xbox online achievements are the public enemy number when it comes to achievement hunting. As you might be able to guess, online trophies usually require you to play co-op or PvP modes with other players, taking the power out of your hands and making an achievement much more luck-based.
The only advice when it comes to online achievements is to proceed with caution. These achievements can be ridiculously hard, whether that be due to empty servers or a player base that is really, really good at the game.
In games that have dedicated hardcore fans, you may have an incredibly difficult time with even the easiest of online achievements, since you’ll be going up against the players that have been playing for years.
Buggy Achievements
Buggy achievements are exactly how they sound – either unreliable or completely broken. This means that there’s a good chance you may complete the achievement and still not have it unlocked, which is ridiculously frustrating.
Luckily, lots of buggy achievements have workarounds you can perform to get them to unlock. Be sure to check the XboxAchievements forums and roadmaps to see if another player has come up with a solution before you write off a buggy achievement completely.
Start Simple
If you’re new to achievement hunting on Xbox, start small. Don’t start with a huge RPG, and definitely don’t start with a game full of missable and online trophies.
It also helps if you decide to hunt a game you’re already familiar with, so take a look at your library and see if there are any games you already own that you’d like to hunt.
Once you’ve gotten some experience in following achievement roadmaps, feel free to move on to some harder games or more complicated hunts.
Have Fun
Above all, achievement hunting should be fun. If you’re finding a game hard to hunt and it’s becoming more stressful than fun, make sure to stop hunting.
It can be tempting to push through the stress to see that satisfying 100% completion at the end, but don’t let chasing the 1000G impact your love for games.
