The grind is real: 20 achievements that are an absolute slog

When i think about all these grindy achievements i kinda start questioning the entire point and reason why i'm hunting achievements.
I completed a few grinds myself and most of them take place long after the fun part of a game has stopped. Yet, i'm still somehow compelled to force myself to keep playing a game i'm tired of to gain some completely irrelevant meta game 'medal'. I mean, there is some kind of feeling of accomplishment for unlocking them (or 100%ing a game), but is it really 'worth it' to go extra long ways outside of playing normal? Grindy achievements are the most extreme examples of how cheevos have evolved more into a thing of their own, almost some kind of work. I mean, there's plenty of people that decide on which games to play (or buy even) depending on how easy it is to 100% it.

Yet, i have unlocked so many achievements in so many games. So many hours just for cheevos after the fun. 'Turning away' from achievement hunting now would feel like a have wasted so much time in my life pointlessly. But my backlog keeps growing larger and gaming time shrinks while i'm looking at the games i started already with a mixture of boredom and, occasionally, almost disgust.

So conflicted.

Edit: Maybe it's not sense of accomplishment anymore. It starts to feel like being relieved that the chore is done and i can finally move on to another game. Now enter games like State of Decay 2 that add cheevo after cheevo with each update denying any chance of final closure (imho this game has long overstayed its welcome)

FaSCoRP said:i didn't mind this one too much. At least the daily and weekly challenges were fun and short.

A real grind is Dead or Alive Extreme 2



from the comments: "Good luck with this one, it'll most likely take you a year to earn it."

a year!

I’m surprised Trove didn’t make the list, there are several extremely grindy achievements in it.

Zinfande1 said:It’s not that Trove didn’t make the list. It’s not meant to be an exclusive list of the worst offenders. The article simply highlights a handful of grindy achievements to start a conversation where we can now add anything else that we think is fitting.

I’ve looked into Trove a few times because of the sweet ratios but yes, it seems to be a bit too much of a grind for me.

Chucklestyle said:Well said. I always see this stupid game on sale and have to scoff at how ridiculous the grind is.

HolyHalfDead said:Completing all the events *is* a grind though. Regardless of whether or not it's the point, 5 days of driving for one achievement is a pretty big grind. It's not as much of a grind as the achievements listed in the article, but it's still a grind.

completely overlooked deep rock galactic as achievement progress got reset with updates. the grind to get 1 gold character let alone 4 is outrageous

That's the problem with racing games. I love them for some reason, but I understand just how easy it can be to extend them into super long slogs. Like, you could easily take 10 cars and 10 tracks and make them into 1000+ events without a whole lot of effort. One makes, certain groups, championships, endurance races, force the player to upgrade the car to participate in higher class racing, the list can go on and on. And then do things like they have with Hot Shot Racing where you have different cars with different drivers, even though they are technically the same car, but require a shopping list of tasks to unlock everything, and you have the recipe for a grindy time for very little payout.

I'm want to run that game, but I'm not liking the idea of some tasks in the non-standard racing modes like Cops and Robbers and Drive or Explode. Then they added Barrel Barrage, but looking at those that doesn't seem too bad.

But I also find myself trying to finish everything I play, while at the same time knowing I can't finish everything I've ever played due to games with broken achievements or games I don't have the skill to finish. But achievement hunting is what drives me to even play. I enjoy the activity. But I also feel manipulated in the hunt. Some things they've done to gamify the system has me falling for it hook line and sinker trying to maximize the amount of rewards I gain from it, to my detriment. Now, I won't spend money on trying to get every red cent, but I end up doing most things. But I've beaten this dead horse before. I could talk for hours about it easily. It's my demons I deal with.

I'm almost done with the Rec room achievement, not so much with the Friday the 13th achievement though. Maybe one day.

DubstepEdgelord said:I tried going for that one twice a decade ago only to have it reset on me both time and put me back at level 1. The first time it happened I was at level 180, the second time I was at 263. I uninstalled the game and never touched it again.

DrSchlepenstein said:That sucks, I would be devastated if I lost my save where I am at level 261. I know some people were constantly backing up their save to usb although I have been winging it. Probably should have looked into it since it would be terrible to lose all that time.

Got 3 of these!

I got all Achievements in BF Hardline

Mathachew said:I agree with that statement...

KeebyMK said:In which case any game with a 80+ hours completion is a grind. I’m playing Skyrim right now, and I can play for days without unlocking an achievement - it is not a Telltale game with regular unlocks every hour. But in my opinion there is a massive difference between completing “fetch” quests or winning races in different cars, compared to repeating the same action 100,000 times.

If FH4 had an achievement for getting to level 99 car collector, then that would be a grind. I’be been playing since day 1 and still haven’t reached 99. Getting to level 10 in painter, tuner, designer and blue-printer would be massive grinds - most people probably haven’t even hit level 5 in each of them (to unlock the Ford Capri FE).

In Skyrim if there was an achievement to Legendary (prestige) all skills 10 times that would be a grind.

When I buy a game I want one that will occupy and entertain me for weeks, not to get 1000G in 1-2 hours. In the 1980-90’s I would (re)play the same game for years.

It’s getting to a point where I think one of the best things that could happen for gaming right now is that whenever you load a game for the first time a single achievement worth 1000G unlocks. Then people can go back to enjoying games like they used to before achievements, and the 1000G in 10 minute games will have to compete with other games on merit, lol. It will also put an end to achievements that become discontinued 10 years after the game was released.

DubstepEdgelord said:I would highly recommend backing up your save using a USB imaging tool. Not only are you risking losing your save if anything goes wrong, but you are risking having to do the entire grind over again if you complete level 280 and the achievement decides to not unlock, which has happened to some people. If you use a USB imaging tool, you can reload your save at level 279 and try again.

I got Bladder of Steel on medium vocals; contrary to its name, vocals give you the most opportunities to run for a quick bathroom break.



This one requires, among other things, most if not all of Perfect Dark Zero's multiplayer Achievements.

"KILLTASTIC!" "KILLEGAL!" "KILLHARMONIC ORCHESTRA!"

Katamari shouldn't be on the list - 100 hours in that game is a breeze. Seriously 1.0 also took 127 hours minimum so it's not all that bad.

Bomberman Act Zero, Quake 4.. missing, lol

BadRubberPiggy said:I think most people associate Quake 4 with leaderboard achievements although the achievement for playing 5000 ranked matches is still the highest ratio achievement I've unlocked to date. You needed a full lobby of 8 if you wanted to avoid the 2 minute countdown and even then you would have to regularly dashboard.