I love achievements in video games. I remember playing Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360 and getting my first one and thinking “Oh this is neat!” And over the last 20 years, I’ve grown to enjoy them more and more as they have become a digital scrapbook documenting my gaming accomplishments across different platforms. Which is why I’m so sad that Nintendo, yet again, has decided not to implement an achievement system.
When Polygon recently asked Nintendo vice president of player and product experience Bill Trinen if the Switch 2 would have an Xbox 360-like achievement system, he simply answered: “Nope.” It’s not surprising that Nintendo has made this decision as the company has avoided achievements for 20 years now, despite nearly every other video game platform and console implementing them in the meantime. Yet the way Trinen is so flippant in his answer rubs me the wrong way. It’s like Nintendo is too good for achievements or doesn’t seem them as useful. And that’s silly.
When done well, achievements can add an extra layer of replayability to a game. If you really love a game, it can be fun and challenging to work on getting every achievement. And in doing so, you’ll likely be forced to use weapons you never used before or experiment with mechanics you mostly avoided. A particularly tricky achievement might require some teamwork or planning. And that can be a blast in a game you already adore and now get to spend more time with.
Another aspect that I love about achievements is, as mentioned, the way they act like digital scrapbooks. Right now I can load up my Xbox achievements and see what I was playing in 2018. What games did I finish? What games did I spend a ton of time in, collecting everything? What games did I barely play? I can see all of that and more via my achievements, which act as an always-updating activity log that I can flip through years later. I can do this on Steam, PlayStation, and even my Android device for games that support Google Play’s achievement system. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s lack of achievements means I have to rely on each console’s limited activity tracking data to sort of piece together what I’ve played and done.
Devs have also been creating and implementing achievements and trophies for about two decades now, so it’s not like you’d be asking them to do much extra work. And I expect Nintendo would add their own fun spin to collecting achievements. Plus, the people who make Super Mario, Pikmin, and Zelda seem like they’d be able to devise some really creative challenges for you to pull off.
Look, if you don’t like earning achievements or trophies in games, that’s totally fine. I believe all platforms should let people turn that stuff off if they so desire. But for Nintendo to just ignore achievements entirely is strange. They can add a lot without really causing any problems.
Sadly, the Switch 2 won’t have achievements. Perhaps Nintendo will get around to adding this industry-standard feature in whatever comes after the Switch 2. I hope so. It would be pretty dang cool.
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