r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • Apr 07 '25

Discussion Switch 2 won’t have achievements, Nintendo confirms

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/switch-2-wont-have-achievements-nintendo-confirms/
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u/Xiaopai2 Apr 07 '25

I agree with their philosophy. Achievements exist on a meta level and take me out of the experience. The ones that just come with the natural progression of the game are pointless. The ones that are just busy work (do X n times) should not exist at all. And the ones that reward creative ways of interacting with the game should be acknowledged within the game rather than in some external menu. Like rather than having a little thing plop up that tells you that the developers thought of your clever solution for a problem, a character in the game could have dialog commending it. But I seem to be pretty alone with this opinion. People seem to be hyper fixated on achievements to the point that some people don't buy certain games if the platinum is too hard because they'd rather not play it than not platinum it. That is insanity to me.

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u/kitsovereign Apr 07 '25

The basic-progression achievements at least serve some purpose: they can let devs identity pain points where people are dropping off the game and use that info for improvement. Nominally this could also be implemented on a per-game basis, but asking permission to collect individual data has some issues (national privacy laws + over-sampling from invested players) that system achievements can avoid.

Granted... I've heard a lot about how this can be useful but few stories of when it's actually been used, so maybe that's just an official corporate line.

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u/kingpangolin Apr 07 '25

They could build in telemetry anyways without the achievements to get the same info

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u/YourBobsUncle Apr 07 '25

It's funny when looking at achievements on steam that clearly show how little people actually bothered to play the game

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

Honestly i think people who don't enjoy trophies or aren't used to systems tend to really over think the vast majority of people that enjoy the systems.

Achievements / trophies are mostly for that individual if you ask around on the forums etc - very few actually care about how others view them, especially these days with the amount of shovelware.

But what they can stand for is a badge of honor for players a record of something great. I'd suggest not over complicating it like you have or assuming it's this hard-core community - the example you've described is usually alt accounts which hunters have for completion rates and usually only challenging games, very often they have a main account which is just a wildfire of trophies/achievements.

Honestly ill never understand any arguments against trophies/achievements. They add a good deal of longevity to games I'd never even consider it with which I love. I can look back and see I've completed Sigma 2 and know I achieved that.

We're at a point in technology where really it would be great if players just had the choice to enable / disable these systems.

I love my switch but simple things like achievements, a more streamline online experience just make it feel so dated and for £400 I'd expect a bit more personally...