With the Xbox 360, Microsoft innovated the popular achievement system in video games, something that has since been copied by its competitors with features like PlayStation trophies. Xbox achievements have been an important feature since their introduction, with achievements returning on Xbox One and now Xbox Series X. But while Xbox may have popularized achievements, there are some areas where it's been surpassed.
PlayStation trophies include a special Platinum trophy that players unlock after getting all the other trophies in the game, which helps them keep their 100% status even after new trophies are added through DLC and the like. PlayStation trophies also let fans conveniently reveal the information behind secret trophies so they can know what to do without having to look up a trophy list or guide. While Xbox still has nothing in the way of a Platinum trophy equivalent, it seems like users will soon be able to reveal secret achievement information soon.
Xbox Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead Insiders can currently check out a new feature being tested where users can choose to reveal the information for secret achievements. Previously, Xbox users could reveal secret achievements by choosing to look up information on them through Xbox's Edge browser, which was always just an unnecessary extra step.
Developers use secret achievements and the like to hide spoilers from players. With this change, secret achievements can continue being secret for those who don't want to accidentally read plot details when looking through a game's achievement list, but those who simply want to know what to do to unlock secret achievements can do so at the press of a button. It's unclear when this feature will make its way to all Xbox users, but hopefully it happens in the relatively near future.
There are other ways to improve Xbox achievements, but this is a big step in the right direction. Achievement hunters have been asking for the ability to reveal secret achievement information for years, especially after the feature was added to PlayStation trophies. It will be interesting to see if Xbox improves the achievement system any further with future updates. A Platinum trophy-equivalent for Xbox would be nice, but no plans to that effect have been announced at the time of this writing.
For now, Xbox gamers will still have to rely on old methods to reveal secret achievements, but that should hopefully be changing at some point in the near future.