Achievement hunting is one of those peculiar hobbies that I think people don’t quite get. And I completely understand why, at a certain point it does become somewhat of a “completing a checklist” type of thing. But that’s the whole point.

What’s the point of achievements then?

I think achievements in games serve two different purposes. One is to be a little reward for the player and give them that very teeny tiny bit of dopamine that we all crave. Achievements like these, in general are my favorite types of achievements because they not only serve the casual enjoyer of the game—but are a blast as an achievement hunter. I would consider completely unmissable achievements (such as story achievements) to be in this category, along with silly achievements like—Stray’s Boom Chat Kalaka achievement which has you “dunk” a basketball in one of its levels.

The other purpose that achievements serve is to offer the player—especially those completionist types—a challenge. These types of achievements fall under a very broad spectrum, from collectible achievements to difficulty related achievements and the “kill enemies in X way” achievements which are kind of like a middle ground between challenge achievements and the types of achievements I mentioned above.

Why you should add achievements to your games

Achievements in games and what purpose they serve My take on achievement hunting

Why bother adding achievements to your game if most people don’t care about achievements?‌

Well it’s true that most people don’t really bother with achievements but I think achievements serve some sort of purpose for these types of players as well. Because they do serve as pretty good progress markers! And not only that but they can also be a nice way to find out certain things about the game—and help players discover play-styles they hadn’t thought about. Whether or not they hunt for all of the achievements is irrelevant—but it’s just such a common thing in gaming now that people, even those who don’t necessarily go out of their way to grab every single achievement have come to expect.

And for me personally—I usually go into a game expecting to 100% or get all of the achievements in said game. It’s the completionist soul in me that makes me want to do it.

Why do I achievement hunt?

Well it originally started off as me just trying to get the most out of the few games I got to play, I didn’t really have money to buy games so whenever I did get a new game I would play the absolute living shit out of it. Now it’s become a habit and definitely a hobby that I really enjoy!

Should you start achievement hunting?

If you’re asking this question my answer to you is, maybe. It’s most definitely not an activity for everyone—it can be incredibly tedious at times and can also be incredibly fun, all depends on the game obviously.

If you are looking to start out, I’d recommend you start with one of your favorite games, and I always recommend looking up a guide and having a peek at what there is before attempting to hunt a game! It’s important you do this for a few reasons—if the game is older, there might be multiplayer achievements which are unattainable, or the game could have a lot of missable achievements, and all of the sort. In general achievement guides and the like do not contain spoilers, though your mileage may vary. Depending on the game the achievement names and descriptions themselves could be spoilers as well. For PlayStation trophies specifically, PSNProfiles is your best bet when it comes to guides and the like, as, at the start of every guide you will be able to see info such as missable trophies and which trophies require multiplayer. Steam guides are also a great resource, and Powerpyx is alright though their YouTube videos are way more useful than the site considering there are usually better alternatives for guides.

Last updated: 2026-01-09