won’t be long now, my friends…

won’t be long now.

After months of back and forth, and what ended up being one of the largest internal discussions at Sony on a game’s requirements for such things in the history of such things, I am now allowed to reveal What I’m doing About Trophies.

Achievements. Love ’em or hate ’em, they’re here to stay. They don’t motivate me personally as a player – I prefer to play entirely within the ‘world’ of the game – but I completely respect and empathise with those who enjoy them.

For this reason, I wanted to ensure that Lone Survivor’s trophies were as unobtrusive as possible, but also a very deep additional challenge, free of grind, for those that wished to explore the game beyond the surface.

It is especially important in a game such as this where immersion is critical to the experience, that I don’t let them get in the way of that: the last thing you want is to be taken out of the adventure by a system message.

1. Trophies Will Be As Unobtrusive As Possible

For this reason, after many months of discussion, I have persuaded Sony to allow me to:

a) … not show any trophies during gameplay. They will be displayed only when the player goes to sleep, or on the completion of the game.

b) … display the following message at the start of the game (I’m very glad that Sony have recently allowed players to disable Trophy notifications via the System Settings in the latest firmwares, I also recommend disabling Friend Notifications, although I would still lobby for developers to be allowed to change this setting from in-game, on a per-game basis… hopefully Sony are listening and at least considering this in future as it isn’t currently possible.):

c) … let all but a few trophies remain secret to ensure the first playthrough of the game is not coloured by trophy hunting.

2. Yes, there will be a Platinum Trophy.

(… but it will be hidden, deep.)

I worked hard on the Trophy designs, so that it would be a rewarding additional layer to the game, if you choose to explore it.  Particularly so that your repeat playthroughs are interesting and varied.  The idea is that the player will be rewarded for exploring the light and dark corners of the game, not for simply making progress or for repeatedly doing the same thing.  There is a huge amount to see in this game, especially in The Director’s Cut, and the Platinum Trophy takes you on the widest possible tour of that content.

Not only will Lone Survivor will have a Platinum Trophy, but this Trophy, if pursued, will be rewarding and open up new aspects of the game. It will not be an easy one, but it’ll hopefully be an interesting one!

However, I still hope that players who are new to Lone Survivor will disable trophy notifications on their first playthrough so that they experience the game as deeply as possible.

– Jasper