Playing Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition on PC and I hit one of those classic “Bugthesda” moments: last time this level crashed to desktop with no warning, and today my screen randomly auto‑adjusted mid‑game and threw my aim and immersion completely off.
I did the usual ritual: check for updates → Microsoft Store updates → verify game files → repair the library. You know the drill.
But honestly, that’s not the part that’s really stuck in my head.
What’s been gnawing at me is this: in 2026, are achievements still relevant in the way platforms treat them—especially when mods disable them anyway?
A few things bother me:
Mods disable achievements (even on consoles now in some cases), so for a lot of players they’re already meaningless mechanically.
There’s no way to opt out. If I don’t want a permanent public record of what I did or didn’t do in a game, tough luck.
Even if I uninstall or refund a game, the partial achievement list just sits there on my profile forever like a half‑finished diary I never agreed to publish.
What I wish existed is something like:
a “no achievements” mode where I can play purely for the experience, and my achievement list just shows as “inaccessible/opted out” to others
or at least the ability to hide or erase achievements for specific games if I decide I don’t want that history attached to me anymore
I’m not pretending I can change the minds of big companies who still design like it’s 2005, but I am genuinely curious what different types of players think:
Achievement hunters: Do you care if others can opt out, or does that not affect you at all?
Mod users (PC and console): Since mods often disable achievements, do they still matter to you in any way?
Everyone else: Do you ever think about the permanence of your achievement history, or is it just background noise?
Is it time for platforms to give us a real opt‑out or ephemeral play option, or am I overthinking something that most people are fine with?
I'm kind of achievement hunter, my Steam profile has 33 perfect games and 70% avg. completion.
I always saw achievements as a way to enjoy 100% of the game, I see it as path that developers build to make sure you experienced everything that was made to be experienced.
You can just play a game on normal, finish the game, see the story once and done, goodbye.
But then you decide to look the achievements list and see things like:
Isn't it cool? I think it's pretty cool to be honest.
Hunting achievement has add like a few dozens of hours to my games, which make my money worth more per hour.
$40 a game -> finish main story in 20h -> $2/h
$40 a game -> finish main story and all achievements in 40h -> $1/h
This has literally nothing to do with marketing, pretty the opposite, it's hard to see good made achievements because it's kind of an extra thing which doesn't add much value to the game as a whole.
I like when developers make good achievements: challenging but not too hardcore, motivating you to explore everything and find easter eggs for example.