Summary
- Steam players are once again calling on Valve to separate DLC achievements into their own tab.
- Updates and DLC, if they introduce achievements, are piled on top of the old ones. That means you lose your 100 percent even if you don’t own the content.
- It’s a bit of a pain for achievement hunters.
One of the biggest problems achievement hunters face on Steam is keeping their 100 percent scores. If DLC comes out, new achievements are piled on top of the old ones, rather than being separated into their own tab like on PlayStation. Players have long called on Valve to address this to no avail, but the discussion has cropped up again nonetheless thanks to u/Filippikus.
“Why isn’t this a thing yet?” they asked on the Steam subreddit. “I hate having every achievement in a game and then, boom a DLC comes out and they add more achievements that I can’t get without the DLC. It can’t be that hard to implement…”
Some suggest using third-party websites like Steam Hunters, but they’re a band-aid at best, as the 100 percent score is still lost on your profile. And what are achievements if not bragging rights, eh?
It’s A Problem With Updates, Too
As u/HandoAlegra pointed out in the comments, DLC is just one part of the issue. Updates also add new achievements, like Baldur’s Gate 3 did when it implemented Honour Mode. Yes, to get the Platinum equivalent on PC, you need to beat the game without dying.
On PlayStation, all new achievements are separated into their own tab, and one of the best examples of this is Minecraft, where every major update is treated like its own expansion as far as achievements are concerned.
Related
Should More Games Have In-Game Achievement Lists Featuring “Real” Rewards?
Nintendo still lacks achievements/trophies. As someone who has generally never cared much about this stuff, that hardly upsets me. But what it’s allowed for – and that’s not to say this doesn’t happen elsewhere sometimes – is in-game achievements.
Now, taken on its own, that’s fine, though hardly game-changing. But what I appreciate is when you receive unlocked content for accomplishing these tasks. A sterling example: Xenoblade Chronicles. The first game, that is. Hundreds of these objectives. It can be argued, I suppose, that these aren’t “really” achievements, per se. But I’d argue back that you’re less likely to encounter such a more in-depth system in games that have hardware-based achievement lists. The developers here reward you richly for doing all manner of things.
For me, that’s a far bigger incentive. What examples of this approach have you appreciated in other games, and do you think the mechanic should pop up more often?
Steam is over 20 years old at this point, and achievements were introduced way back in ye old 2007 when the Orange Box was released. Maybe Valve will overhaul them one day, but I wouldn’t my breath for now.
Steam
- Brand
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Valve
- Original Release Date
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September 12, 2003
- Original MSRP (USD)
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N/A