T w e n t y S i d e d

Achievements and trophies have been a contentious addition to the gaming space since their initial releases. The majority of people mostly ignore them. Some find it mildly annoying to have their immersion or momentum broken up by a HUD element obscuring the action. Some really hate them, viewing them as trivializing and undermining the individual game’s enjoyment or message for the sake of short-term dopamine. Certain dopamine deprived monkeys, like myself, love them. And for the sake of this article I will refer to them all collectively as trophies, as the PSN system is my area of focus.

I like having an extra set of challenges to try to complete. There used to be high scores in most games that gave you a target to shoot for other than completion. That mostly went away and trophies picked up from there. The addition of online play also added an easy way to compare your lists to those of your friends and others online. Seeing what my friends accomplished really drove me to try new games as well.

I enjoy having an explicit reason to boot the game back up when I’ve finished a playthrough. Trophies provide an excuse to spend more time enjoying a game that I spent up to 70 dollars on instead of moving past it the moment the credits roll like I might otherwise. For example, I’d likely never have a reason to fully finish Death Stranding 2. It’s narrative focused. To me, its gameplay is nothing special and the majority of the side content isn’t very compelling. However, I have a brain worm that likes to watch an animation play and a number go up so I got another 12 hours or so of fun before I put that game away, likely for the last time. Because of that grind I got a feeling of closure that hit me. I didn’t have to push myself to play it again unless I wanted Kojima to scramble my brain again. I got my money’s worth.

Another bonus to trophy sets is how remasters of older games now have an actual reason to exist, for trophy hunters like myself. So many games come out now that I feel like my backlog is flying away from me at Mach 5. No matter how unimportant that backlog is, no matter how silly the emotions tied to it, I feel like I’m wasting time booting up an old classic. That is, unless I have another platinum to hunt. So when Lollipop Chainsaw Repop came out, I had a solid reason to pick the game up and play the hell out of it. I get to show the game off to friends too in a higher resolution and frame rate as well. Remasters are hard to justify a lot of the time – looking at you Last of Us series – but they can be a great way to make classics accessible for the young ones and us older folks who have sold off or otherwise gotten rid of our older collections.

The absolute biggest benefit of trophies for me, though, is that once or twice a year, every year, I fall out of love with video games. No matter what I play, nothing scratches that itch anymore. I spend more time with my other hobbies but there’s still a big chunk of time in my day I end up feeling somewhat lost. That’s where trophies come in. About half of the time if I’m gunning for a completion of a game with a large scope or a difficult gameplay system, there’s one or two trophies that require hours and hours of grinding. For example, Dark Souls III has several faction based trophies that require you to either actually be good at the game and defeat other players, or kill the same enemies over and over for a 1% drop rate item to drop 30 times. Then repeat that for each faction. It was tantamount to torture and I nearly gave up on the platinum due to it, but I had the 100% on all the other Soulsborne games at the time so I decided to set that grind aside. Well, COVID hit. I was miserable. My roommates were miserable. You were probably miserable. That whole first year was ass. In that misery I lost my love of video games for the first few months and I finished DSIII up and got that hit of dopamine of the completion when I wouldn’t have enjoyed playing anything else anyway. And I had proof that I really love the series and was willing to put in the work. Trophy hunting has gotten me through plenty of stretches of video game apathy and that’s why I love them most.

An important note is that trophy hunting should be approached with moderation. If you go into every game looking to complete it, you’re asking for pain. Some games don’t lend well to that play style. Some games just aren’t good enough to justify that kind of time or dedication. I’ve dropped plenty of games after fully enjoying them because the trophies are too frustrating, too difficult, or just incredible time sinks. The biggest deterrent for me is typically multiplayer focused stuff. For example I adore the Gears of War franchise and I was incredibly excited to play it on current gen systems, but one of the trophies is for getting 10,000 kills in an online mode that is basically just sprint at each other with shotguns, pray… yeah, I’ll pass. That stuff doesn’t keep me from enjoying the game, but it makes trophy hunting a nonstarter. And that’s totally fine.

The absolute worst quality of trophies is the way it can cause a mild addiction. I’ve known people that can’t play a game unless there’s a full trophy list. They see it as pointless because that number doesn’t go up. Like any habit or hobby, it can be unhealthy and I think that’s what ruins the reputation of us goofass trophy hoarders. Chasing the shiny pixels is an extra to add on to an experience. It shouldn’t be the only motivation.

If you’re interested in my collection of trophies I have it linked below. I’m currently working on Metal Gear Delta and Hotline Miami. I know the majority of you don’t care, but it’s there for those with the curiosity, morbid or otherwise. And if you’re compelled to send a friend request to my account, that’s cool. Just know that I’m a poorly socialized hermit and likely won’t interact with you. I think I’ve sent a total of a dozen messages on PSN going back to the PS3 days.

Ethan Rodgers