Since debuting alongside the Xbox 360 all the way back in 2005,Xbox’s achievement system has gone on to become a welcome staple of the modern gaming landscape. Despite spawning several clones from all manner of rivals like PlayStation and Valve, Microsoft’s own creation has remained largely unchanged since the early days of Xbox Live. It’s really a testament to the core idea and manner in which the console manufacturer executed its vision, that players are still addicted toenhancing their Gamerscores via virtual trinketsall these years later.
While plenty of achievements exist that are downright sadistic when it comes to their difficulty level, there’s an ever-growing list that takes things to an even greater extreme. Keeping in mind that achievements have now survived three successiveXboxconsole generations, and are widely available on PC and mobile devices for good measure too, it’s not all that surprising that some of the digital rewards have become completely impossible for players to earn. Due to a number of factors like closed servers, glitches, the steady march of human technological advancement, and other forces often beyond the control of players, there’s an ever-growing list of games that achievement hunters should be wary of jumping into.
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Chromehounds' Multiplayer Achievements
Over the years, multiplayer-centric achievements have become the physical bane of collectors. Thanks to the sad fact that online enabling servers cost money for developers and publishers to maintain, most games inevitably lose their multiplayer modes at some point in their lifecycle. Naturally, this ensures that if a game features an achievement that’s unlocked once players complete a specific task online, in most circumstances, there’s an invisible ticking timer attached to its accessibility. TakeUbisoft’sTom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklistfrom 2013 for example, which features an achievement that requires players to complete daily and weekly tasks. For several years this digital accolade has been completely impossible for new players to unlock, due to the fact that the game’s servers have been shut down forever.
While the list of these impossible achievements will continue to grow exponentially almost every year as Microsoft marches forward, there’s one specific example out there already that perfectly encapsulates this phenomenon. Released in 2006,FromSoftware’s long-forgottenChromehoundswas a mech simulator that was set on a bleak alternate reality version of Earth. What makes the game remarkable in a modern context, is the fact that 41 of its 49 achievements are now simply impossible to unlock due to their online-centric requirements. Considering FromSoftware has become renowned for the brutal difficulty of itsSoulsgames in the years since it createdChromehounds, there’s something oddly fitting about the developer having a title in its history that features 840 Gamerscore worth of impossible achievements.
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Team 17’s Worms Oversight
When it comes to impossible achievements and trophies, it’s worth keeping in mind that most were actually unlockable at one point in their lifetime. There’s plenty of players out therethat have Xbox achievementsfrom the aforementioned laundry list of multiplayer games, for example, attached to their online Microsoft profiles like virtual commemorative badges of honor. On rare occasions though, some achievements start out life in a state that makes them impossible to earn legitimately from the outset.
One game that features a prime case study of this isTeam 17’sWorms: Ultimate Mayhem. Released in 2011, the 3D turn-based entry in the long-running franchise contains an achievement called Clock Watching, which asks players to beat each of its timed challenges. While PC and PS4 players won’t have too much trouble completing these provided they’ve practiced enough, Xbox owners on the other hand are physically unable to beat the Sniper Rifle challenge no matter how hard they try. That’s because a glitch that’s exclusive to that incarnation of the game, which has been present since its launch over a decade ago, ensures that the gun forcibly reloads itself after every single shot. With only three minutes on the clock, there’s simply not enough time to hit each of the 40 frustrating targets.
Rayman Raving Rabbids' Miscalculation
Glitches that prevent the odd achievement from being locked out from a game aren’t all that uncommon, in most circumstances, developers end up pushing patches that fix the situation in a manner that lets collectors progress with their hunt. Some games though have been released with unobtainable achievements developed into their very core, that there’s clearly never going to be a fix for. Ubisoft’s port ofthe Wii’sRayman Raving Rabbidsparty-game is just one prominent example that’s become notorious over time amongst the achievement hunting community.
When the game made its motion-controlled debut on Nintendo’s pioneering console,Rayman Raving Rabbidsplayers were unable to unlock the final mini-game stage within its score mode. To do so required a perfect error-free run of 174,000 points. The only problem, however, was the fact that a maximum of 173,000 points was actually possible. In the rapid six months that it took Ubisoft to port the game over to the Xbox 360, the error wasn’t noticed. it seems. What made the situation worse for new players was the fact that the Greatest Rayman Ever achievement was created, explicitly with the intention of commemorating those who finished the mode with a perfect run of 183,000 points. Something that no one,presumably even at Ubisoft itself, has ever been able to achieve.
Fable Anniversary’s SmartGlass Achievement
Achievements that have become impossible to earn thanks to the delisting of content, have become an increasingly common occurrence in recent years. The temporary licensing of music, vehicles, and other real-world objects in games, can often result in virtual accolades eventually being locked away forever if the two concepts have been tied together. Games that have been renovated by their developers, likeCryptic Studios' MMORPGNeverwinterfor example, can find themselves with impossible achievements when crucial items that were once present are removed forever as well.
The idea of achievements becoming impossible to unlock thanks to the removal of features, is actually something that extends all the way back to Microsoft itself though. In 2018, when the publisher announced that its SmartGlass Xbox 360 app would be retired from all of its platforms, it had the unfortunate knock-on effect of makingFable Anniversary’s See the Futureachievement impossible for newcomers to earn. When the remastered incarnation of the legendary RPG was first launched in 2010 to celebrate the series' 10th anniversary, earning the achievement simply required players to connect the game to the app. With SmartGlass having since been replaced by the Xbox app, there’s little chance that anyone will be earning this particularXboxachievement again any time soon.
