#5: Achievements That Are Completely Based On Luck (And Luck Only)
Sometimes, an achievement is based on the luck-of-the-dice. The worst contenders are almost impossible — in Yakuza Kiwami, you’ll have to win every MesuKing tournament, which is an extremely weird cat-fighting simulator where bug-women do battle. Oh, it’s also completely random. Like, 100%. You’ll barely be able to complete a single fight, much less beat multiple fights in a row.
Team Fortress 2 takes this to the next level. There are achievements specifically related to winning games of rock, paper, scissors. These are taunt-linked achievements, so you need to taunt another player to initiate a game, and then win three times with each of them. You can’t pick your choice either, so the game truly is random.
Same goes for the RNG-based achievement in NHL 08, challenging you to defeat a Top 50 ranked player. The chances of being matched with a Top 50 player were ridiculously slim, even when the game was incredibly popular. This style of cheevo still lives on today — Halo: The Master Chief Collection has ‘viral’ achievements that spread by doing battle with developers, and it’s still absurdly rare. Why do developers do this to us?
#6: Achievements That Are Literally Impossible To Unlock Now
The most important aspect of an achievement should always be — is it even possible to unlock. Some achievements can’t be unlocked for a variety of reasons; multiplayer servers shutdown, limited-time events are gone, or bugs ruin your chances. These oversights are totally inexcusable, and games like Overwatch are all about these limited-time event challenges!
Other games introduced issues post-patch. In Mercenaries 2, an early patch apparently ‘fixed’ an achievement requiring players to earn a million in-game dollars. Many players didn’t get the achievement, even after surpassing the required amount x100 — and the patch only made things worse, literally making the achievement impossible to earn for anyone that earn one million already.
Thankfully, other games have seen the light. Rainbow Six: Siege recently revamped their achievements list so players can actually unlock everything. Honestly, I’ve never heard of any company doing this! Why isn’t it more common?!
Delve deeper into the dark world of terrible, awful, insanely bad achievements on the next page.
