The Epic Games Store is finally adding comprehensive achievements across the platform. While the store technically already had an achievement system in place, this upcoming feature will integrate it into the storefront writ large. Alongside Epic's free game system, this more comprehensive set of achievements seems to be part of the storefront's move toward becoming a viable competitor to Steam.
After the recent large Twitch leak cemented rumors of an Amazon-driven Steam alternative called "Vapor" existing, it's interesting to see the Epic Games Store stepping up in terms of features it offers users. Steam's achievements exist as a core part of its community systems and account "levels" - allowing users to build and develop their account standing by playing games. It makes sense for this to be a part of the storefront's strategy going forward as it gives users a reason to keep coming back.
How Epic Games Store Achievements Will Work
With Steam's achievement system, players earn XP every time they hit any of the designed in-game milestones, which builds up an overall account level. Epic's new achievements seem to work in a similar way. Apparently, plans to integrate this system with social feature will unfold later this year. Each game is capped at 1,000 potential experience.
The amount of experience each achievement provides will sort them into four different tiers. The first three are Bronze, Silver, and Gold, which range from 5 XP to 200 XP in value. Once all other achievements for a game are unlocked, a player will be rewarded with the final tier: Platinum. Platinum achievements give out 250 XP every time, so they will undoubtedly be useful in the future for missing Epic Games Store features fans are still waiting on.
Epic has already given users a taste of what these achievements might look like. Free Epic Games Store title Rocket League will be one of the titles using these new rewards. Some include "Drift King," "Friendly," and "Budding Artist." The "Friendly" award is given to player who take part in an Exhibition match, and is only worth 5 XP. The "Drift King" achievement is much tricker to unlock, requiring players to perform a 180 power-slide in-game, and as such it counts as a Silver achievement with 50 XP.
What Games Will Achievements Work For?
In its announcement post for the upcoming feature, the Epic Games Store mentioned a few of the titles that will use it straight away. It should be noted that this is far from a comprehensive list of games that will reward players with XP, as Epic has not shared that full information. Furthermore, many of the additional 500+ Epic Games Store games will be updated to use the new system in the coming months.
Some of the titles included in this initial launch will be Hades, Zombie Army 4, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, the aforementioned Rocket League, and Pillars of Eternity. The store is apparently working hard to make this new Epic Achievement framework as accessible as possible for developers on its platform, that way as many titles as possible can be worked into the account progression mechanic.
Perhaps that is why new games like Alan Wake: Remastered will also incorporate Epic Achievements as soon as they launch. As a method of encouraging players to stick to the Epic Games Store it makes sense, but the service still falls far behind other digital retailers in terms of consumer-forward functionality. It still lacks the ability to gift games, write user reviews, and a properly optimized social system.
What Will Happen to Older Epic Achievements?
Epic Games' previous achievement-based outing in 2020 was mainly developer led. It mostly consisted of an overlay that popped up whenever certain goals were accomplished. One of the most prominent of these was Ark: Survival Evolved, but other high-profile games like The Long Dark and Borderlands 2 also had the feature. As per Epic's statement on the original system, it was very much in development, so many achievements were buggy. According to Epic, these older achievements will not be going anywhere, and developers will be able to map them onto the Epic Games Store's newer mechanic should they desire.