After a big year for Microsoft headlined by their acquisition of developer giant Activision Blizzard, it appears there will be some changes made internally that'll have an undetermined impact on the gaming experience. As per a rumour on the XboxEra podcast, the company's premier console Xbox may be getting a tweak in its achievement system.
According to Shpeshal Nick from the XboxEra podcast, Xbox is nearing the completion of an overhaul of its existing achievement system which we will likely hear about in 2024 at the very least. While nothing concrete has been confirmed and it's not yet known if these changes will actually come into effect this year, it seems inevitable that the least we will know throughout 2024 is what the changes will entail.
There is plenty to speculate about what a new achievement system would entail, as this may be a means of providing Xbox gamers with a point of difference from their competitor in Sony's PlayStation. Both consoles reward their players for completing in-game tasks, ranging from completing story mode quests to grabbing every collectable item from a set. The difference at the moment is that PlayStation gamers are awarded Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum trophies, whereas Xbox gives you points according to the difficulty of the objective.
Achievements and trophies have been a mainstay in gaming for years and are generally a point of emphasis that a lot of players put on a game. It's a widely sought-after list whenever games are released or approaching their release time and those most dedicated to a title or franchise will spend just as much time completing those objectives as they will on their first playthroughs. Whether we'll see Xbox adopt a "trophy case" like PlayStation or use this system as a means to offer greater rewards to their players is yet to be seen.