Trophy hunting for beginners: trophies and achievements

Trophies and achievements are the same idea on different systems: optional goals a game tracks for you and records on your profile. PlayStation grades its trophies bronze, silver and gold, with a platinum for earning all the others. Xbox gives every achievement a Gamerscore value, and each game is worth 1,000 at launch. Steam has no grades or points, just a list and the percentage of players who have unlocked each item. Nintendo, as of 2026, still has no console-wide system on Switch 2.

The short version of how to get a platinum, or a 100% on Xbox or Steam: look at the list before you start, check a trophy guide for how long it takes and what's missable, do anything online early, then play normally and clean up at the end. And stop when it turns into a chore.

Trophies vs achievements: how the three systems compare

	PlayStation trophies	Xbox achievements	Steam achievements
Started	PS3, 2008 (required from January 2009)	Xbox 360 launch, November 2005	2007
Grades or points	Bronze, silver, gold, platinum	Gamerscore, up to 200 per achievement	None
The completion reward	Platinum, for every other base-game trophy	All 1,000 base Gamerscore	Just the full list
Does every game have them?	Most do, but small games usually skip the platinum	Required for every Xbox console game	Optional, up to 100 to start
Rarity shown as	Common, rare, very rare, ultra rare	Rare unlocks get their own notification	Exact percentage of players
Profile score	Trophy level, 1 to 999	Lifetime Gamerscore	None, but an achievement showcase

How PlayStation trophies work

Every trophy is bronze, silver or gold, depending on how hard it is. The platinum is awarded once you've earned every other trophy in the base game, so DLC trophies don't stand in your way. Smaller games generally don't have a platinum at all. Developers can hide trophies so the description stays secret until you earn it, which keeps story spoilers off the list.

Each trophy also has a rarity grade (common, rare, very rare or ultra rare) based on the share of players who have it. Your trophies feed a trophy level that runs from 1 to 999, with a bronze icon up to level 299, silver to 599, gold to 998 and platinum at 999. When Sony moved to that system in 2020, it said platinums would count "more toward your level progression."

On PS5 you can pin up to five trophies per game to track them, and compare your list with friends. Trophies have also spread beyond PlayStation hardware: since 2024, some of Sony's own PC releases award them through an optional PlayStation Network sign-in, starting with Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut.

How do Xbox achievements work?

Xbox has the strictest rules. Microsoft's requirements for developers say every game targeting Xbox consoles must have achievements: between 10 and 100 at launch, worth 1,000 Gamerscore in total, with no single achievement worth more than 200. Updates and DLC can add up to 1,000 more Gamerscore every six months, to a lifetime maximum of 5,000.

A few other rules matter to hunters. Achievements can't be unlocked by buying something or by a cheat code. Once an achievement is published, it can't be removed or have its unlock conditions changed. A game sold on Xbox and PC under the same title ID shares one list of achievements across both, and all your Gamerscore adds up to a single total.

Xbox has been tidying up the system in 2026. In April it began testing, with Xbox Insiders, a way to hide games from your achievement history (they still count toward your Gamerscore) and a highlight for games you've completed 100%. In May it started testing tiered badges for your lifetime Gamerscore. And original Xbox games, which never had achievements, are getting them in select cases, Microsoft said in July.

How Steam achievements work

Steam keeps it simple. There are no points and no grades, and achievements are optional for developers, who start with a limit of 100 per game. Where Steam shines is rarity: each game's community page shows the percentage of players who have unlocked each achievement, sorted from most to least common.

Elden Ring is a good example. Its Steam achievement page lists 42 achievements, 36 of them hidden until you unlock them, and at the time of writing 10.5% of players had the one for unlocking all the others. Your profile can show off achievements in a showcase, but there's no score attached.

Does Nintendo Switch 2 have achievements?

No. Nintendo has never had a console-wide achievement system, and Switch 2 didn't add one: its feature list covers GameChat, mouse controls and the new hardware, with nothing about trophies or achievements. Some Nintendo games have their own in-game challenge lists, but they stay inside each game and don't add up to anything on your profile.

How long does a platinum take? How to check before you start

You can find out how big a job a platinum or 100% is before you buy, without spoiling much.

Check the rarity. On Steam, look at the percentage for the final or "all achievements" unlock. On PlayStation, look at the platinum's rarity grade. A low number can mean the list is hard, long or just that most people stop playing, so it tells you how many finish, not why.

Read a trophy guide's roadmap. Sites such as PowerPyx and PlayStation Universe publish trophy guides for big releases. PowerPyx opens each one with an overview: a difficulty rating out of 10, an estimated time, the number of playthroughs, and any missable or online trophies. It rates the Elden Ring platinum 6 to 7 out of 10, puts it at 60 to 100 hours, and counts five missable trophies. It rates the Resident Evil 4 remake 6 out of 10 at 30 to 40 hours, but says to expect six or more playthroughs. Read the overview, not the whole guide, if you want the story to stay a surprise. Our guide on using a walkthrough without spoilers has more on that.

Elden Ring screenshot: Torrent leaping across a gorge, in a game whose platinum PowerPyx estimates at 60 to 100 hours

Use what's built in. On PS5, if Game Help appears on a trophy's details screen, it can show you hints for earning it. Sony said in 2024 that Game Help would be available to all PS5 players, with or without PlayStation Plus. On Steam, each game has player-written community guides, many of them achievement guides.

How to get platinum trophies: tips for trophy hunting beginners

Find the missables first

A missable trophy is one you can lock yourself out of: a choice, a collectible in an area you can't return to, an ending. In the Resident Evil 4 remake, PowerPyx notes that all the non-automatic story trophies are missable because there's no chapter select. Know them before you start, and you can do one relaxed playthrough instead of two stressful ones.

Check what the difficulty trophies need

Many lists include a trophy for finishing on the hardest setting. In some games that also unlocks the trophies for easier settings, but not always. In the Resident Evil 4 remake, an S+ rank on Professional also unlocks the Hardcore and Standard S+ trophies, while Hardcore S+ doesn't unlock Standard. Our guide on how to choose a difficulty setting covers which games lock your choice in.

Do online trophies while the servers are up

Online trophies only last as long as the servers. When EA shut down Anthem on January 12, 2026, the whole game became unplayable, and every trophy and achievement left in it went with it. On Xbox, a published achievement can't be removed, so dead ones simply sit on your list forever. If a game has online trophies, do them while people are still playing. We wrote more about what server shutdowns take with them.

Resident Evil 4 screenshot: Leon in the dark woods outside the village, in a game where story trophies are missable without chapter select

Know about stacks and autopop

On PlayStation, the PS4 and PS5 versions of a game can have separate trophy lists, known as stacks, so one game can mean two platinums. Some games "autopop" when you carry a save over: PowerPyx says Resident Evil 4's trophies unlock automatically when you move a save from PS4 to PS5, while Elden Ring transfers the save but doesn't autopop. On Xbox, a game that runs on several devices under one title ID has to share a single list.

Back up your save before a point of no return

Elden Ring has three endings, and PowerPyx's guide gets them all in one playthrough by backing up the save before the end. On PS5, PlayStation Plus cloud storage makes this easy. It's the difference between replaying the last ten minutes and the last 60 hours.

When trophy hunting stops being fun

Trophy hunting is at its best when it pushes you into corners of a game you'd have skipped. It's at its worst when you're playing with a collectibles map open on your phone, grinding a counter you don't care about, or booting up an online mode nobody plays to farm wins with a stranger. If that's where you are, it's fine to stop. Only 10.5% of Elden Ring players on Steam have every achievement, and the other 89.5% still played Elden Ring. Our guide on when to stop playing a game is about exactly that feeling.

If you do go all the way, it's nice to have a record of it. Perthro syncs trophies from PlayStation and achievements from Steam and Xbox, including your Gamerscore, into one library on your iPhone. When you finish a game and then some, mark it Mastered instead of Completed. The Steam, PlayStation and Xbox tracker page lists what each platform brings in.

Trophies and achievements: a beginner's guide to hunting them