This is an opinion piece from writer Travis Northup. IGN’s opinion columns represent the writer’s personal views, drawing on their own experiences and research to explore the exciting world of video games.
During a recent visit to S-GAME, developer of Phantom Blade Zero, ahead of the action RPG’s release, the studio showed off a pretty interesting difficulty option that unlocks once you beat the game, called 66 Days Mode. Here, you only have 66 chances to complete the entire campaign, turning the protagonist’s heart condition into a clever gameplay mechanic that truly dedicated players can take on as the ultimate challenge. Excited, another member of the press said, “Ooh, this will be a fun achievement to pursue,” to which a developer quickly responded, “No, no. There are no achievements. All achievements can be acquired in a single playthrough on any difficulty.”
It’s a strategy I’ve heard repeatedly in 2026. During my many visits to game studios this year, I’ve spoken with more and more developers who are intentionally curating their achievement list to be as accessible and inoffensive as possible. For what? Because they’ve learned that there’s a growing population of gamers who factor them into their purchasing decision – sometimes even choosing not to play games they might otherwise enjoy if collecting all the digital trophies isn’t a guarantee or requires them to go all out.
The result of this threatens a worse landscape for everyone, whether it’s players who become increasingly invested in racing to complete tasks or developers who are financially incentivized to design components of their game based on the desires of the achievement-chasing community (which undermines the whole point of achievements to begin with).
The achievements have been around, of course, since the Xbox 360 debuted in 2005. Within three years, PlayStation and Steam had their own equivalents. Yet even though I am well aware of their two-decade existence and the obsession that can surround them, I had never personally spoken to anyone from the feat-hunting caucus until recently. I made a new acquaintance while playing tabletop RPGs, and while chatting during character creation, I noticed that this person had a Steam Deck with them. I asked them what games they were excited to play, and they said, “I’m thinking of buying the new Castlevania game…just waiting to see what the achievement list looks like.” » I took the opportunity to probe their worldview and the way they enjoy games. They explained that for them, checking off the list of things to do in a game was cathartic, and that if they were asked too many things to complete the list, it stressed them out and made them not want to play at all.
For as long as RPGs and quest logs have existed, there has certainly been an element of checklist and completionism in the nerd space, as many of us have an obligation to do and see everything a game offers. This is now more of a part of game design than ever thanks to the growth of live service: Fortnite wants you to log in daily to check off a list of jobs that might not even be in the game modes you want to play that day, but you’re doing it just to get that dose of XP. This influence has also carried over to offline single-player games, such as Ubisoft adding a daily and weekly checklist of tasks to check off in recent Assassin’s Creed games, asking you to do pointless repetitive tasks rather than focusing on the more engaging content those games offer.
I’ve always viewed these dailies as optional extras at best and glitter to be ignored at worst. So I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least a little depressing to hear that, for some, support has been reduced to a Trello-like task board that they prepare for in advance and play through while heavily referencing a guide to make sure they don’t miss any of the trophies along the way. For me, the whole point of gaming as a medium is discovery, experiencing your own personal version of an adventure or story and, well, playing. It feels like a growing number of players have forgotten what the game is all about – like those who follow the instructions on a LEGO set step by step rather than using those building blocks to create something unique.
While I don’t believe this approach to gaming is anywhere close to becoming mainstream, it is clearly dominant enough to affect the design strategy behind achievements and even games in general. Not including an achievement for the hardest task in a game for fear of alienating a particular group, or calibrating an entire list of achievements to be easily achieved in a single playthrough, completely reverses the purpose of achievements, where players were incentivized to seek out secrets and overcome the most difficult content. Additionally, if this strategy becomes more widespread over time, it will have transformed something that is meant to be fun into something that exists purely as a marketing tool for the developer. “Will it be painless to get all the achievements?” becomes just another bullet point in some PR exec’s press release to persuade those with a learned addiction to these virtual badges to spend time and money on their game. I certainly have my own opinion on those who value achievements so much that they allow them to determine what games they play, but even those who casually like to aim for the highest honors and hunt for the most elusive secrets have lost something when the achievements to complete these challenges no longer exist.
But there’s a much bigger problem here: how the habits of achievement chasers are actively affecting game development. It seems many of the developers who make the games aren’t as thrilled about it. I’ve started asking designers and directors about their relationship with directing every chance I get, and the most common feelings from my limited sample range from mild annoyance to outright antagonism toward them.
Sam Barlow, a designer who worked on the Silent Hill series before creating indie darlings like Her Story and Immortality, recently took to social media to express his opinion on the subject, writing a thread of posts describing the friction quite well:
And therein lies the problem: when gamers start taking their achievements seriously, especially when it comes to the games they choose to buy, developers need to start taking them seriously too. And if they want to use achievements to encourage players to look for interesting items they have hidden in their game or to remove the most difficult content, as most developers I’ve spoken with seem to want, then they find themselves at odds with the “easy checklist” that a segment of players are looking for. Now, what was a minor annoyance that achievement hunters could mostly ignore has real consequences for all of us – as achievement hunters’ fear of losing out in the market could actively influence game design.
In the case of Phantom Blade Zero, the design impact is pretty clear, as S-GAME has stated that the 66-day mode is not associated with any unique weapons, enemies, or unlockables – not even a fun cosmetic item for those who beat it. It’s entirely possible that there were completely unrelated reasons for this decision, but my conversations with the team certainly gave the impression that not pissing off the achievement chasers was at least part of the reason here.
There’s an interesting argument to be made that one could view this shift in philosophy of success as a move toward accessibility and not put these distinctions out of reach for those who don’t have the time, patience, or skills to do the demanding things that are sometimes required. This is definitely an angle I’ve heard some developers focus on when describing their approach, including some S-GAME developers when it comes to Phantom Blade Zero. And there’s probably a genuine effort by some to simply remove barriers for those who care about achievements – a small price to pay to appease those who do, especially when most developers don’t seem to. But this change also removes any real sense of accomplishment for those who want challenging or interesting objectives beyond those presented in a game.
And in any case, if accessibility is a factor, it is certainly secondary to what game creators really care about: selling their game to as many people as possible. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not, there’s no incentive to play Phantom Blade Zero’s 66 Days mode outside of your own satisfaction, and that’s at least partially driven by the commodification of achievements as a selling point rather than a fun list of optional activities. And if achievements no longer exist as digital bragging rights for exactly the type of pursuit that 66 Day Mode represents, then what good are they?
Perhaps this new era of achievement without challenges is just the invisible hand of the market doing its job. Perhaps developers, who could use help avoiding studio closures and layoffs these days, can benefit from those who care about achievements by selling a few more copies. But whether it’s the clinical way a growing number of gamers are using achievement lists as glorified Jira tasks, the tiny number of achievements worth bragging about, or the impact of achievement-chasing culture on actual game development, it seems to be making things worse for all of us. And I, for one, think it’s a shame for something that started out so intentionally silly and fun.
Gn tech
