Former Gears of War Series Producer Thinks Achievements Hurt the Game's Multiplayer

gamerant.com:

A former Gears of War producer has admitted that some achievements «ruined the game» in regard to multiplayer. Gears of War is notorious for implementing difficult or time-consuming achievements that can sometimes affect how players approach these games.

Every Gears of War game includes a «Seriously» achievement, which rank as some of the most difficult achievements to unlock in all of gaming. Their requirements range from killing 100,000 enemies, to reaching level 100 and earning every Onyx medal, to completing the campaign on Insane level while also fulfilling other difficult goals. While these achievements are infamously difficult, they weren't the ones that the ex-Gears of War developer talked about in particular.

During an interview on the My Perfect Console podcast, Rod Fergusson, who oversaw achievements in various Gears games, acknowledged that weapon-based achievements like the original game's It's a Massacre partially ruined the multiplayer experience. It's a Massacre called for players to chainsaw 100 enemies in ranked multiplayer, which encouraged those who were trying to quickly earn all the game's gamerscore to focus on this kind of combat instead of playing the game as intended. Fergusson explained that achievements like this one often lead to frustration among teammates.

The franchise's first entry featured plenty of other achievements similar to that one, like killing 100 enemies in ranked matches with Gears of War's Hammer of Dawn, curb stomp, Longshot, Torque Bow, and more. While these achievements could be completed naturally by those who played Gears of War's ranked multiplayer over the course of a few months or so, there were also plenty of gamers who preferred to quickly progress through the game's achievements, leading to a now-obvious issue during matches.

However, Fergusson further explained that hopefully fans saw a growing «maturity» regarding Gears' achievements as the series progressed. Succeeding games, like Gears of War 2, still featured