Nintendo Switch 2 Won't Have Achievements - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 07 April 2025 / 3,727 Views
Nintendo has revealed the Nintendo Switch 2 won't have achievements.
Polygon asked Nintendo Vice President of Player and Product Experience Bill Trinen if there would be an achievement system on the Switch 2 and he stated, "Nope."
This means achievements being added to games will be up to the individual developers. For example, Ubisoft games on the Switch 1 had the ability to unlock achievements via Ubisoft Connect. However, they did not show up on your Nintendo profile.
Nintendo is experimenting with some form of achievements with the Switch 2 versions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Both games have the ability to unlock medal through the Zelda Notes app on your phone.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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They can be nice to look back on as a reminder of when you were playing something, and where you were in those games at the time.
An activity log is nice as well, but I don't think it would specify when i was at certain points in a game.
Recently a friend asked if they were the ones who got me into the Yakuza series 15 years ago, and I was able to confirm that by comparing our Trophies.
You tend to get trophies when you defeat major bosses or complete chapters, etc. Being able to look at a friend's trophies also helped me understand roughly how far into a game they are and what I can talk about without either of us getting the story spoiled.
Having manually taken and by default poorly organized screenshots at best isn't really even nearly the same as something that's automatic and neatly organized. I'm sure some find achievents a distraction, but I know I would find constantly looking for screenshot opportunities a pretty bad distraction too.
I do that too for moments I know I want to remember. But I won't always know at the time that I'll want to look back on it it the future. For example, I distinctly remember the year I played MGS4 due to things that happened that year. But there were also parts of the game I remember playing a few years later. I wasn't sure which was correct. So I looked through my Trophies, and saw a 2 year gap between beating two bosses. And then I remembered that I actually took a 2 year long break, and why.
And just recently a friend of mine said she thinks she's the one that got me into the Yakuza series. And I was able to confirm that by comparing our trophies. Other times when a friend is playing the same game I'm playing, I can look over at their trophies to see roughly how far into the game they are, and know which parts of the game I can discuss safely without spoiling things. Asking them how far into the game they are can be risky, in case they're futher into it than I am. Etc.
Who cares! lol. I have a SteamDeck and Playstation. Achievements are the LAST thing on the totem pole. Switch 2 will be amazing without them.
A lot of people do care and it would be awesome especiall for some of Nintendo's own games. Pokemon anyone?
I've failed to hear a single convincing argument against achievements. I hear how, "It forced me to keep playing." That's not a good reason since the game is doing this as well lol. I don't care if I get all the achievements in a game. I hardly ever do. It's simple a layer to track your overall game history.
I know I have a tendency to mop up the remaining 'easy' achievements after I'm otherwise done with a game, but those 'easy' achievements tend to take hours much of the time, and it's time I wouldn't otherwise have spent on the game anymore. Do I enjoy it? Yes, but. Would I have a better time without achievements? In many games, I suspect I would.
I think ideally achievements would be something you unlock at a fairly constant rate as a kind of a progress meter, in which case they wouldn't necessarily be such a distraction, but many games have pretty poorly designed achievements, partially because the number per game is artificially limited because they're given numerical values that much add up to a certain value and no more. The way Steam does achievements is probably my favourite, because there's little incentive to achievements besides your internal drive to collect them.
Would've been nice to have, honestly.
I understand the argument both ways but personally I prefer it didn't
I'm weak and Trophies have kept me playing games I didn't like that much for far too long lol
No fucks given. I just want games.
Boooo
That's a shame. Maybe next gen. Sigh
Could always be added later...
PS3 didn't get them till 3 years after launch
PSP was planned but was cancelled after the hacking situation
I don't understand why Nintendo refuses to implement this. Its low hanging fruit. A lot of people out there are motivated to 100% games when they get something from it.
I never understand how this is a thing tbh it's such a non feature thing that most don't care about. It's the typical wave of people asking for it but if it was released, how many would actually care about it.
Xenoblade: Hah! As if your rules could ever matter to me!
Wait what? didn't they show in the zelda games app, theres like a achiement type thingy? Why wouldn't you just do that for every nintendo game? its so low effort, and adds replayability ect for people.
I don't personally care whether Nintendo wants to do achievements or not, but I am somewhat surprised developers/publishers haven't made a stronger push for them. Besides bringing the platforms closer to parity in terms of features, I feel like they can be an interesting source of data metrics for the creators.
Lame, basically every other gaming platform in existence these days has them (Xbox, PS, Steam, Epic Store, etc.), no idea why Nintendo refuses to put in the work to implement an achievement system.
Never once thought of them while playing Chrono Trigger on my SNES recently. Literally never. And the greatest games of all time didn't have them so... I don't see the point.
Personal preference aside, saying, they didn't do it back then so they don't need it now, isn't exactly a good argument. Those same games would still be great with them.
But they don't need them now.
Achievements are either a) pointless rewards for reaching a point in the story (participation trophies) or b) generally rewarded for grindy, not-fun bullshit that I would otherwise never waste my limited gaming time on. Either way, they're pointless.
Of course they aren't needed. Most features aren't needed, but they are still nice to have and enrich the experience. Achievements track things players can do in the game already so there is literally no harm in adding them. If you really don't care about achievements, there are features to turn off notifications and can be simply ignored.
It's cool to get an achievement for hidden features in a game I had no idea existed and compare what you unlocked to your friends.
On Xbox, you get reward points for unlocking achievements which can be used to buy games. I wouldn't call these features pointless.
Fine with that. Never saw the appeal of achievements. Games come with their own built-in achievements (or not) as part of the game, depending on what each developer wants to do with the game, as has always been the case with games. No reason for a system-wide standard achievement system. I guess people who care about showing off online what they have done might care? Not sure what the point of achievements besides that is. I've never once thought to myself that I wish there were system-wide achievements while gaming. I dunno, maybe younger generations of gamers are more about bragging rights online or something, not sure.
Sucks but I would just record my gameplay and upload achievements which people can watch on a video-viewing site of choice. I think that would be cooler.
Oh cmon Nintendo. Sony implemented it into the PS3 almost immediately after they showed success on 360.
Under their current leadership, if Nintendo made them, they'd hide them behind one of their online plans or charge us $20 dollars for the "privilege" lol
They've completely lost touch. You can tell that even the diehard Ninty fans on Vgchartz are being somewhat muted.
I've been a fan since I was like 7. Not a fanBOY, though (I have owned lots of other systems). But I have owned almost every single console of theirs, and I'm not just muted over this... I'm ashamed and dumbfounded. How they could be this stupid is just unfathomable.
Great that's why I love nintendo.
I couldn't care less. I have no need to flex my e-peen, nor do I care about anyone else's. I'd rather the effort be put into making sure the game is great and actually playable on day 1 without a crazy patch.
Good.
Couldn't care less
GREAT!
Expected.
I have a PS5 which has trophies and better specs than Switch 2. I'm planning on getting very few multiplats on Switch 2.
Once I got a PS4 Pro, my Switch multiplats dropped down to almost nothing.
