Former Gears of War Series Producer Thinks Achievements Hurt the Game's Multiplayer

01.03.2024 - 20:43 / gamerant.com / Rod Fergusson / John DiCarlo

A former Gears of War producer has admitted that some achievements «ruined the game» in regard to multiplayer. Gears of War is notorious for implementing difficult or time-consuming achievements that can sometimes affect how players approach these games.

Every Gears of War game includes a «Seriously» achievement, which rank as some of the most difficult achievements to unlock in all of gaming. Their requirements range from killing 100,000 enemies, to reaching level 100 and earning every Onyx medal, to completing the campaign on Insane level while also fulfilling other difficult goals. While these achievements are infamously difficult, they weren't the ones that the ex-Gears of War developer talked about in particular.

During an interview on the My Perfect Console podcast, Rod Fergusson, who oversaw achievements in various Gears games, acknowledged that weapon-based achievements like the original game's It's a Massacre partially ruined the multiplayer experience. It's a Massacre called for players to chainsaw 100 enemies in ranked multiplayer, which encouraged those who were trying to quickly earn all the game's gamerscore to focus on this kind of combat instead of playing the game as intended. Fergusson explained that achievements like this one often lead to frustration among teammates.

The franchise's first entry featured plenty of other achievements similar to that one, like killing 100 enemies in ranked matches with Gears of War's Hammer of Dawn, curb stomp, Longshot, Torque Bow, and more. While these achievements could be completed naturally by those who played Gears of War's ranked multiplayer over the course of a few months or so, there were also plenty of gamers who preferred to quickly progress through the game's achievements, leading to a now-obvious issue during matches.

However, Fergusson further explained that hopefully fans saw a growing «maturity» regarding Gears' achievements as the series progressed. Succeeding games, like Gears of War 2, still featured similar achievements but with significantly reduced kill requirements. Fergusson detailed that these kinds of achievements can be great ways to introduce fans to new mechanics or weapons, but that there is a thin line between this and significantly changing the multiplayer experience. This issue might remind fans of Call of Duty's mastery camos, which introduced a similar problem.

Every Call of Duty contains a final mastery camo that requires fans to complete a series of challenges with every gun in the game. Previous titles required fans to complete gameplay-altering challenges like getting a certain number of kills while prone or while mounted. However, it seems thatCall of Duty has learned a similar lesson to Fergusson, as Modern Warfare