Some Gears of War multiplayer Xbox achievements “just ruined the game,” says Rod Fergusson

With requirements such as ‘Kill 10,000 people in versus matches” and ‘Kill 100 enemies in ranked matches with the Hammer of Dawn,’ the Gears of War achievements are a real test of dedication. However, according to former series executive producer Rod Fergusson, some Gears of War multiplayer Xbox achievements “ruined the game” as players would focus on trying to unlock achievements in Gears (one of the best Xbox exclusives) rather than playing the objective.

In a recent episode of the My Perfect Console podcast, Fergusson spoke about how Xbox achievements were a catalyst in getting him to check out the different origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins. The conversation soon turned to achievement design, where Fergusson, who created the achievements for Gears of War and several other Gears games, said you “can break a game” if you’re not careful with its achievement list.

Some achievements “ruined” GoW multiplayer, according to Rod Fergusson

“[Xbox achievements] can have an advantage because they’re basically advertising for a feature,” Fergusson said. “So where I saw positives of achievements were, ‘Hey, there’s this thing you don’t know about because it’s new in the game, it’s an innovation in the game.’ So if I say, ‘Go do this thing ten times,’ then you’ll go look at what the achievements are, and you’ll go try it, and then you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I understand this new mechanic.’

“I designed the achievements for Gears early on, and I learned that you can break a game with it. If you look at the [Gears of War] achievements, there’s some multiplayer stuff that just ruined the game because you go, okay, ‘Chainsaw a thousand people,’ and you’re trying to win the match, but this knucklehead next to you is not caring and is just trying to chainsaw people, and you’re like, ‘Why aren’t you trying to win the match?’ and he’s like, ‘I’m not; I’m trying to get an achievement’ and you’re like, ‘Oh, okay, we’re at odds.’

“If you look at the achievements from Gears one to Gears five, I hope you see a maturity about how are we guiding people to new features as opposed to, you know, getting them to do things that are not normal.”

Looking through the achievement lists of other Gears games, you’ll see the weapon-based cumulative achievements Fergusson mentions, like It’s a Massacre (which is actually only for killing 100 enemies with a chainsaw), don’t feature. These achievements were also removed from the 2015 remaster, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, so it seems there has been some maturity when it comes to Gears’ achievements. That being said, each mainline Gears game does have a ridiculous and extremely challenging ‘Seriously’ achievement, which demands an extraordinary amount of time and dedication from a player. I’d probably consider them as getting the player to do something that is “not normal.”

Out of all the Gears games, Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 are probably the hardest completions. The Coalition went all out with the Gears 5 achievements back in 2019 and even added a second ‘Seriously’ achievement, just to make the completion even harder. A year after launch, we spoke to The Coalition about how it came up with the brutal Gears 5 achievement list.