When Microsoft released the Xbox 360, it innovated a new concept for gaming consoles in the form of achievements. The concept behind achievements is simple. After players manage to complete a certain task in a game, they are rewarded with an achievement immortalizing their efforts. Xbox 360 achievements proved popular enough that other gaming platforms eventually followed suit, with PlayStation introducing its own version of achievements, called trophies, for PS3 games.
Over the years, Xbox achievements have mostly stayed the same, with some improvements here and there. For example, achievements that require players to collect a certain number of items can now track their progress in real-time, giving players a much better idea of how close they are to getting that specific achievement. But in other instances, Xbox achievements have been outpaced by PlayStation's trophies. Whereas Xbox gamers have not been able to reveal the details for secret achievements in a convenient way, PlayStation users have been able to see secret trophies for quite some time. However, it seems Xbox is finally following suit.
Xbox will soon be letting gamers reveal the descriptions for secret achievements. With the current set-up, Xbox gamers have to choose to "Search for Help" when they get to a secret achievement, which will trigger the Microsoft Edge browser to pop up with Bing search results. It's an inconvenient way to figure out what secret achievements one has left to unlock in a game, so this upgrade should be well-received by achievement hunters.
As for when exactly this update will be available, that remains to be seen. Microsoft has said that the achievement update will be rolling out with the Xbox console update for June, though a specific date wasn't provided. More information should come to light in the days ahead.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Xbox makes any other changes to achievements, like adding a Platinum trophy-equivalent, Platinum trophies, the ultimate reward for unlocking all the trophies in a PlayStation game, have proven to be quite popular, as they give PlayStation gamers something else to point to when they've mastered a game. Not only that, but they solve the problem of DLC and expansions adding more achievements/trophies to the mix, which means Xbox gamers can suddenly no longer have 100% achievements in a game they've already completed.
Xbox currently has no plans to introduce a Platinum trophy-equivalent for achievements, but at least gamers will soon be able to see the details for secret achievements.