Achievements have been a main stay for Xbox games for more than ten years, since the days of the Xbox 360. While other gaming platforms like PlayStation and Steam have copied the similar concept of awarding points to players for completing certain objectives in games, the original Xbox achievement system has gone largely unchanged, until now. According to a recent interview on Windows Central, there are some big changes coming to Xbox Live’s achievements.
During the interview, Xbox Platform Vice President Mike Ybarra said Microsoft was working an something that “fundamentally changes the concept” of Xbox Achievements:
We are working towards a bigger, more meaningful change about somebody’s gaming accomplishments in history, as a gamer on Xbox. We can do a lot more to reflect and let people show their gaming history and their status.
Its unclear what exactly Microsoft has planned for Xbox Achievements, but it is clear that they aim to better reflect gamers’ progress and game history. The way Achievements work now, players complete certain objectives and are rewarded a certain amount of points to add to their Gamerscore. Usually, if an objective is much more difficult to complete or requires more time to reach, its worth even more points, thus raising your Gamerscore even higher.
From what Ybarra said during the interview, it seems Microsoft is looking into making the Gamerscore reflect not only the amount of time and effort players put into their games, but also which games individuals prefer to play the most. Maybe Microsoft will add a timeline of players’ game stats and biggest victories alongside the usual Gamerscore.
Until Microsoft officially announces what these “fundamental changes” will be, all we can do is speculate and wait.