Creator of Mirror's Edge's rad achievements list believes that achievements are bad, actually

Former Mirror’s Edge achievement creator Fredrik Thylander has posted on Twitter that he believes achievements and trophies have been bad for gaming, despite his history of creating some pretty swell achievement lists in the past.

His initial tweet reads as follows: “Unpopular opinion: achievements/trophies have been bad for gaming. It narrows games down, it disrupts and diverts attention, and it eats resources that could have made the game better.” In replies, he elaborated that, “games should have the reward mechanisms most suited for them, and the one-size-fits-all mandate from platform holders to make reward systems that benefit the platform makes games worse.”

Hot take or not, it’s a compelling argument! We’ve all played games where achievements feel slapped on as a second thought. They can seem included just because they have to be, farmed for meaningless points rather than adding anything substantial to the experience of actually playing the game.