Fishing for Achievements

Hours of fishing behind you. Just one more fish. Just that one particular fish is all you need. Fishing spot after fishing spot, you keep getting every other fish except the one you need. But you are so close to it and will not stop now, not even to take a break and continue tomorrow. This has been a project that you have been working on for months on and off. And today finally, you feel it in your reach. Just one fish. There is a small disappointment every time you pull the rod and you read the name of a fish you have already caught. And then, finally, you catch the last fish. This is it. You wait for it. What if it does not work? Seconds feel long. Finally, you hear the familiar sound and see the pop-up notification. You have finally unlocked the ‘Master Fisher’ achievement in The Elder Scrolls Online on Xbox. 

This was me this summer. The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that I play quite frequently. ESO’s achievement list is daunting, and the game has become a rare game where I’m not really trying to get them all. Maybe if one day I see that I’m only missing a few, I’ll start working actively on it. However, I do like fishing in games, so I had to get the ‘Master Fisher’ achievement when I saw it. ESO is an exception for my achievement tendencies. I would go as far as to describe myself as an achievement hunter. 

“Achievement hunter?” you may ask. Xbox introduced an achievement system on their Xbox 360 console, where players can unlock achievements in games by completing challenges set by the developers. These achievements are worth some Gamerscore that gets added to the player’s profile. Today many who game have achievements or trophies, as they are called on PlayStation. You don’t need to even try to get them. If you play on a platform that supports them, unlocking some is inevitable. For some people, this system feels rewarding, so they actively go after achievements and game completions. These kinds of people sometimes refer to themselves as achievement hunters. There are communities online on Reddit and websites like TrueAchievements, where people can engage with each other and discuss this side of the hobby. 

But why do people hunt for achievements? I personally think going for achievements can be really fun and rewarding. They challenge you to play games in new ways and you might find things in games that you would not have found otherwise. I do admit though that the act of achievement hunting has also become in itself a hobby of sorts. You set goals with your Gamerscore and it is always satisfying to see that 100% completion in a game. I love making lists and oh boy can you make lists when planning games to complete and keeping up with different aspects needed for achievements. On the TrueAchievements site, you can also join monthly challenges, where you have to unlock achievements based on different criteria. Achievements are a great addition to a gaming hobby if you are interested in them, although if you are not careful, you might give this side too much power. 

Playing a game through blind is so rewarding experience and I’ve noticed that this is one of the areas that has suffered in my gaming after I fell into the achievement hole. I get the feeling that I should maximize my time and look up a guide on how to snag all the missable achievements and collectibles in one playthrough. I have been able to resist this if I know there is a chapter select, but the thought of another full playthrough if I miss even a single collectible, makes me want to have a guide hold my hand. Best guides avoid spoiling as much as possible so that’s not the biggest issue here. Why using a guide is ruining my gaming experience, is that it breaks the flow of the game. I read where the next collectible is, then I get to play. Ah, found it. Then it’s time to read what the next thing I should pay attention to is. I’ve played good games like this. But never amazing games, and I think it is solely because I can’t give my full attention to the game and enjoy it in my way.  

So, I’ve started to work on playing without guides when starting new games. I can go for the missed achievements after I’ve enjoyed the game on a blind playthrough. But what if there are no achievements? This is my second big problem with achievements. It started to feel like a waste of time to play games if I could not get achievements. On some level, I have conquered this problem. And ESO was one of the games that helped me, along with Pokémon Violet. In these games, there were satisfying internal goals to complete and it helped me play without going after achievements. So I can happily say that if a game is not available on Xbox, I can now still play it and enjoy it. This is great because I do want to enjoy games no matter the platform. Still, if the game is also available on my achievement machine, that’s where it is played. 

Completing games is also something I go for. Getting more Gamerscore is nowadays a smaller joy for me than having all the achievements in a game. Sometimes though this is not possible. Maybe I don’t have the skills to get some really hard achievement. Maybe it takes a ridiculous amount of time to unlock it. Or maybe it’s just impossible due to a multitude of reasons, like server closure or a glitch. It feels bad. But this is another aspect where playing ESO has helped me. I love that game and I recognize the difficulty and time requirement of completing it. I made my peace with the fact, that it’s probably never at 100%. And that helps me accept others like it. Still, you can see me spending hours on hours on some mundane task just for the completion if I have thought it possible. After all, I am an achievement hunter. 

So, I love going for achievements and 100% completions in games. Nevertheless, I am also trying to find again the purer joy in gaming. Achievements are a great addition to this hobby, although I think we should all remember that they are just that, an addition. We play the games because of the games, not to just get some arbitrary number to go up. So, I’ll continue to try and enjoy my games on their own and enjoy achievements on the side. So, maybe it’s time to go fish for the expansion’s fishing achievements on ESO. 

 

Photo: screenshot from Xbox app (Microsoft), taken by the author 

Header photo: screenshots from The Elder Scrolls Online (ZeniMax Online Studios), taken by the author

 

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