Playing Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition on PC and I hit one of those classic “Bugthesda” moments: last time this level crashed to desktop with no warning, and today my screen randomly auto‑adjusted mid‑game and threw my aim and immersion completely off.
I did the usual ritual: check for updates → Microsoft Store updates → verify game files → repair the library. You know the drill.
But honestly, that’s not the part that’s really stuck in my head.
What’s been gnawing at me is this: in 2026, are achievements still relevant in the way platforms treat them—especially when mods disable them anyway?
A few things bother me:
Mods disable achievements (even on consoles now in some cases), so for a lot of players they’re already meaningless mechanically.
There’s no way to opt out. If I don’t want a permanent public record of what I did or didn’t do in a game, tough luck.
Even if I uninstall or refund a game, the partial achievement list just sits there on my profile forever like a half‑finished diary I never agreed to publish.
What I wish existed is something like:
a “no achievements” mode where I can play purely for the experience, and my achievement list just shows as “inaccessible/opted out” to others
or at least the ability to hide or erase achievements for specific games if I decide I don’t want that history attached to me anymore
I’m not pretending I can change the minds of big companies who still design like it’s 2005, but I am genuinely curious what different types of players think:
Achievement hunters: Do you care if others can opt out, or does that not affect you at all?
Mod users (PC and console): Since mods often disable achievements, do they still matter to you in any way?
Everyone else: Do you ever think about the permanence of your achievement history, or is it just background noise?
Is it time for platforms to give us a real opt‑out or ephemeral play option, or am I overthinking something that most people are fine with?
I only achievement hunt for certain games. Granted, I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything. I'm probably the guy that most hardcore gamers hate. I'm old school, in my day, you could just pick up a game and go. You'd peruse the manual a bit on the ride home from the store and you'd have a pretty good idea of how to play it once you got home. Some games today are still that way, hell some are so intuitive that you just pick it up and you already know how to play(spiderman), some haven't changed enough in decades to be a problem. (Gran Turismo, call of duty, Madden). However even if you understood HOW to play a game, some were just hard AF. Everyone understood how to play the stampede level on lion king, very few could beat it.
The point of that previous paragraph is to put a perspective to my response. There weren't achievements growing up. In fact, many games were so hard, or so badly designed that it was nearly impossible to beat unless you were so ridiculously dedicated that you wouldn't have enough time to get into other games. I played the original command and conquer games and absolutely loved them but tropico has like 45 fucking menus and I just can't remember or be bothered to learn every single minute detail. However, Gran Turismo only got more detailed gradually enough that it came naturally, even if I skipped several iterations. My point is, I try a lot of games, especially the free stuff on PS+, that I like the idea of, but when I play it I'm just like nah, fuck this like tropico, I even made my guy look like trump lol. Or games that are too big that I'm just not gonna try to 100% but I love all the same like cyberpunk. I really like DayZ but I never played the arma games and have no idea really what I'm doing. It's fun but I know getting platinum just isn't happening but I have fun.
So I guess my point is, I don't blame anyone for not getting platinum. Currently I only have 4. All the insomniac spiderman games and fallout 4. I want to play a game for the game. Hunting trophies feels like a job, unless I realize I'm pretty close just by playing the game. So if someone wants to play a game without achievements being shown I wouldn't judge. I like fighting games but won't play DOA because I dont want to catch shit from my friends for being thirsty.
Also sorry if my post is a little disjointed and rambling. I've been writing this during commercials while also getting progressively more buzzed.