MeinMMO-Demon Cortyn is currently diving into the Switch 2 with the Zelda games – and realizes how annoying achievements in other games are.
The Zelda games on the Nintendo 64 were a big part of my youth back then. I loved Ocarina of Time and secretly played Majora’s Mask for way too long at night. Later, I played through Twilight Princess with a sibling and then also Skyward Sword with my roommate in my first shared flat.
The two Zelda raps from Starbomb still live rent-free in my head today (thankfully, they are still available on YouTube).
Zelda – or rather Link – has accompanied me my whole life. When Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were released for the Switch 1, I was itching to play – but I found the graphics on the Switch 1 not appealing enough to justify the purchase.
Now I’ve caught up with the Switch 2 and directly bought the two Zelda games. And they teach me something that I have basically felt for a long time but can now articulate clearly: In the Nether, achievement systems are so annoying.
How Achievements Distract from the Game
It doesn’t matter whether I am tackling an extremely challenging boss fight in Clair Obscur Expedition 33 or following the emotional story of Lost Records: Bloom and Rage. As soon as any important point in the game is reached, there is a loud “Pling” that automatically makes me look at the top of the screen, where the trophy is displayed.
A brief moment that lasts a maximum of 1-2 seconds. The intention is to trigger the reward center. I have “achieved” something and “earned” something – namely the trophy. That is supposed to give me a brief dopamine kick.
However, these “rewards” have a disadvantage. They pull me out of the game world and the narrative of the world every time. The acquisition of trophies is non-diegetic, and in most cases, there is absolutely nothing connected with the trophy except reaching a certain point in the game or performing a specific hidden action at the right time.
Every time there is a trophy, it is a brief moment where I am pulled out of the game world. A brief moment where my PlayStation or Steam reminds me that I am playing a game and “completing” things. A hidden or visible checklist that tells me when I have seen and experienced everything.
By the way: The colleagues at GameStar made a very worthwhile YouTube video about the Zelda phenomenon.
Zelda is a Pure Experience Without Needing Achievements
The Legend of Zelda doesn’t need any of this, and I have noticed that clearly in the last few days. Because Zelda (or Nintendo in general) has no achievement system.
Of course, there are also “achievement experiences” in Zelda. When I find a hidden shrine or master one of the great temples, a new equipment item or ability usually awaits me.
The “achievements” in Zelda are part of the gaming experience. An achievement is not that an overlay shows me what I have accomplished, but the square bombs that no longer slide down slopes or the hot fire sword that can defeat frost enemies in one hit.
Actually, I was tired of open-world games. I was initially resistant to the “Your weapons break after X hits” system. I thought I had outgrown Zelda somehow.
But Breath of the Wild is currently showing me that this is not the case. The game has shown me some exciting things in just a few days that I probably wouldn’t have understood for a long time otherwise. The huge, freely accessible world where you can just march in any direction you want – even if that means encountering enemies that can beat several lives out of Link’s body with one hit. Maybe I should have taken the lesson from the song to heart:
But like hardly any other game world, The Legend of Zelda is simply “round” and that completely without achievement systems. Even if I find many of Nintendo’s decisions a bit questionable, not having an achievement feature clearly belongs to the better ones.
And “Tears of the Kingdom” is also waiting here for me when I finally finish Breath of the Wild.
When that will be? No idea. I have no achievements that tell me how far I have come.
My lesson from it: Actively hide the reception of trophies and achievements as an option wherever possible. Since their introduction, they have increasingly devalued games for me. At first, one was still positively inclined because – let’s be honest – collecting is somehow something great, but it quickly wore off. Because in most cases, achievements are not part of the gaming experience, but simply something superficial that is imposed on the actual game to trigger another dopamine kick.
At least for me, it makes the gaming experience so much better and more immersive. Because no flashing pop-up can compare to the experience of having climbed that huge, snow-covered mountain with frost resistance potion after an hour, only to then plunge down from it with a glider.
I don’t want achievements in my games just for the sake of having achievements. I don’t want any more lists that feel like “going through a checklist” and most importantly, I don’t want a noisy “Pling” that pulls me out of the gaming experience every half hour and thus achieves exactly the opposite of what I really want: being able to dive into a world and forget everything else for that time.
You can also ruin open-world games wonderfully – our Mary often manages that.
