Hard Video Game Achievements That Are Deliberately Vague

Achievements are a great reason to keep playing games. After all, not only do they serve as milestones for one’s progression through a game, but they also mix in some additional challenges to encourage players to try new tactics, and to keep grinding away before being blessed with a figurative stamp of approval.

It’s nothing surprising when developers insert challenging and demanding achievements, yet it’s another thing entirely when the description as to how to achieve them is deliberately vague, offering little-to-no information on how to actually acquire them in the first place. These can range from playing a title with a specific developer on the server (meaning one must find their Steam account), to staying alive in a wave-shooter where one hit will restart all progress.

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5 Skullgirls

‘Funded!’

Skullgirls

Platform(s)

Android, iOS, PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S

Released

April 10, 2012

Developer(s)

Reverge Labs

Skullgirls is one of those titles that deliberately write cryptic descriptions of achievements, which fans have since decided to deduce and decipher themselves to figure out what on Earth this fast-paced fighting game is trying to ask for here, exactly. Such is the case with ‘Funded!’ If one were to check the description of the 2nd Encore version of the game, it would say “A heartfelt thanks to everyone that believed in Skullgirls and made this happen”. It seems like a nice, lovely message to the fans, and is likely this is a reference to how the game was fundraised, though it says nothing about the demanding requirement.

What the achievement actually requires from players is to perform a whopping 829-hit combo. Fans have cooked up their own roundabout solutions to an otherwise jaw-dropping demand, which requires trying out some sneaky tricks in its Training mode and disabling the restrictions for landing infinite-chain combos. Alas, it seems that only 0.2% of players have managed to obtain this achievement.

4 Team Fortress 2

‘Tune Merasmus’s Multi-Dimensional Television’

Good luck acquiring this one without a guide on-hand. This can only be completed on the map ‘Brickyard’ in a game of the sports-meets-shooting game mode PASS Time, and requires at least nine players from both RED and BLU sides to work together to tune the hidden TV set of Soldier’s former roommate and recurring Halloween boss, Merasmus the Magician. Such a task requires significantly more effort than simply fiddling with the television’s aerials and whatnot.

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After opening a secret passageway for everyone to access, specific classes of a certain team color must stand at particular points in the room before shooting the plug out of its socket. It’s a lot more challenging than it sounds, and needs constant communication with everyone on the server. At least it comes with a free hat for those patient enough to cooperate in order to make the achievement come true, though trying to persuade others to stop playing the game and focus on this unusual Easter egg may prove to be rather challenging.

3 Devil Daggers

‘Devil Dagger’

Achievements with no description whatsoever are vague enough, but achievement titles that are named after the game itself are anything but self-explanatory. The wave-based boomer shooter Devil Daggers holds back none of its punches, as receiving one hit is enough to end the game and put a player back to square-one. With more enemies entering the fray as a run persists, it starts off tough and only gets even more challenging from thereon out.

In short, to achieve this achievement, one must survive for no less than 500 seconds. Or, to be more specific, eight minutes and 20 seconds. This is very difficult because of the aforementioned one-hit kill design choice, and only 0.3% of all players have reached such a steep milestone. Doing so will unlock a new skin for one’s daggers that are thrown rapidly at foes, so wielding this fancy new design is a bit like bragging rights. Nevertheless, only those with rapid reflexes and unwavering determination are going to be lucky enough to survive against the hordes of floating skulls and their varying attacks.

2 The Binding of Issac

‘Dead God’

This is another blank achievement with no specification of how to acquire it. Well, sleuthing fans certainly pieced together the puzzle here, only to recoil in horror at what must be done. Thanks to the addition of new achievements from the game’s free updates and DLCs, a grand total of 637 achievements must be acquired to get this 638th one. And that’s not all; all 717 obtainable items must be acquired alongside.

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This will require the player to: die at least 100 times, complete chapters without taking any damage, defeat bosses as specific characters, beat every one of the game’s challenges, destroy 100 blobs of poo, donate 999 coins, and so many more tasks that could probably fill an entire page or two if they were all written down. Finding all the items, however, is purely based on luck, and will require constant replaying until every last single pick-up is collected for good. Getting this one will require godlike tenacity and patience, and it seems 2.7% of players on Steam have proven to possess exactly that.

1 Garry’s Mod

‘Yes, I’m The Real Garry’

To acquire this achievement for the sandbox title Garry’s Mod, one must participate in a game alongside Garry. So, who the heck is “the real Garry”, anyway? Well, as if it wasn’t obvious enough, it’s referring to the creator, Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios. Firstly, one must track down his Steam username (and not some impostor calling themselves “garry”) in hopes of bumping into him on the game’s servers.

On the other hand, it would be a futile effort. According to his Steam account, at the time of writing, the publicly-shown ‘Recently Played’ list of games is completely blank. So, the chances of finding him on a server are going to be borderline-impossible if he’s not been bothering to play any title in recent times, let alone his most iconic creation. Whether he decides to dust off the title and boot it up again for old time’s sake remains to be seen – just so long as no one is foolish enough to harass him into playing it just to get said achievement.

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