Hero image: A Mythic Achievement notification for Gears of War: E-Day. Image: Xbox
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to care about a new kind of achievement, but Xbox’s Mythic Achievements, which Xbox Insiders can try now, do something I have wanted a platform to do for a long time. They reward finishing a game, and they leave the extras out of it, which is exactly where I think the extras belong.
Here’s how it works. A Mythic Achievement is earned by completing all of a game’s original achievements, while the ones added later through DLC or updates are not required, and once a game reaches Mythic status it stays that way. That last part matters more than it sounds, doesn’t it? I mean, how often have you finished a game, properly finished it, only to watch the completion number go backwards because somebody bolted a new pack on months later?
That’s the bit I like most, because a finished game should stay finished. When I have put the time in and seen everything a game shipped with, I don’t think I should be told a year later that I am not done after all, simply because there is something new to sell. I’m not saying add-ons are the enemy, and I am certainly not saying nobody should chase them. What I am saying is that the reward for finishing the thing I bought should not quietly depend on the thing I did not.
It also looks backwards, which I really didn’t see coming. Xbox says Mythic Achievements have already been added to eligible games people completed in the past, Xbox 360 games included, so a profile might already have a few old favourites sitting there at Mythic status without anyone lifting a finger. Would you go digging through your history to see which ones made it? I know I would, and I suspect plenty of people reading this will be doing the same thing tonight.
The way it is shown makes sense to me as well. There is a new Gaming tab on the profile, Mythic Achievements get what Xbox calls a heroic frame, and each game’s achievement list now has a progress bar towards Mythic, with later achievements clearly tagged as add-ons. You don’t have to guess what counts and what doesn’t, or go and look it up on some other website, and I honestly think that clarity is half the appeal of the whole idea.
Now, I can hear the obvious question already. Isn’t this just another badge to grind for? Maybe it is, and I won’t pretend I am above wanting a shiny frame on my own profile. But I would argue it is a better badge than most, because it asks for the thing a game actually is rather than everything a publisher might decide to add to it later, and it rewards patience with the game in front of you instead of a willingness to keep buying.
It isn’t everywhere yet, and I would like to see it arrive for everyone without too many strings attached. For now it sits with Insiders, and Xbox is asking them for feedback, so if you are in the Xbox Insider Program, I would tell them what you think. As for me, I’ll be watching for the day it reaches everyone, because a reward for simply finishing a game is one I can get behind without any fine print.
Source: Xbox Wire – Available for XBOX Insiders: Mythic Achievements