Every gamer has their own feelings about trophies and achievements. Some just can’t resist them and will ravenously hunt down even the most difficult ones in every game they play. Others have particular favorite games or franchises and will only take an interest where those are concerned. One might even buy games simply because they offer an easy-to-acquire platinum trophy, whether it’s actually something the gamer wanted to play or not.
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Still, from casual trophy dabblers, to those not interested at all, to dedicated trophy hunters, players have noticed that some games are much less willing to give up their trophies than others. Buckle up for some of the most difficult platinum trophies on PS4. Some games are exclusive to the system, some aren’t, but they’re all going to be super challenging and they've all inspired gamers to replace their controller (and even TV sets) after coming so close but ending up so far.
Updated on August 10, 2021 by Tom Bowen: Trophies and Achievements are a great way to celebrate skill and perseverance in gaming. They serve as hard evidence of a player's mastery and can even give them bragging rights over their friends and fellow gamers in some social circles. For most though, platinum trophies serve simply as a sign that they've done all that there is to do in a game; squeezing out every possible drop of fun in the process. Some games provide very little challenge in this regard, but there are others that will likely have players pulling out their hair as they attempt to complete the seemingly impossible challenges being posed.
20 Badland
Obtaining a platinum trophy in Badland is an arduous task that definitely isn't for the faint of heart. Just half a percent of players have managed it, likely because as well as being incredibly difficult to unlock, some of the game's trophies require an awful lot of grinding.
In addition to completing 300 single-player and co-op missions, players seeking the platinum will also need to rescue two clones in each of the game's stages and survive for 15 minutes without dying in its most challenging one. Even if they manage to do all that, they'll still need to rescue a total of 1,500 clones in single-player and a staggering 2,000 in co-op to finally get their hands on the platinum.
19 Tetris Effect
On paper, Tetris is one of the simplest games ever created thanks in large to its very basic mechanics and straightforward objectives. With that in mind, it stands to reason that unlocking the platinum trophy in Tetris Effect should be a relatively straightforward task. Anybody who thought so would be dead wrong, however, as fully completing the title is anything but.
Trophies like Spin Artist, which require players to rotate Tetriminos a grand total of 1 million times, are incredibly grindy, as too is the trophy that's handed out for reaching Player Level 100. Even if players have the time and patience to unlock them though, they'll likely come unstuck when it comes to the Seriously? Seriously. trophy, which requires players to earn SS rank in every single zone and game type.
18 NBA 2K18
In true 2K Sports fashion, unlocking the platinum trophy in NBA 2K18 is probably going to involve players purchasing in-game currency to participate in MyTEAM game mode. Strictly speaking, it is possible to get the associated trophies without spending a dime, but by the time most players have done this, NBA 2K32 will have been released for the PS6.
Just for good measure, in addition to the plethora of MyTEAM related trophies, there are also a bunch of incredibly grindy ones for players to sink their teeth into. Maxing out every badge in MyCAREER is going to take some serious doing, while achieving a 10 game winning streak on King of the Court for the King of Kings trophy will likely be beyond most players.
17 Shenmue 3
Though the narrative content in Shenmue 3 may leave a little to be desired at times, there are still plenty of things to see and do throughout the game's beautifully rendered world. As in the series' two previous installments, Ryo can once again kill time playing arcade and mini games or snooping through drawers and closets. Two of the newer activities – herb collecting and fishing – can be a lot less enjoyable though.
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While both can be relaxing in short bursts, obtaining the four trophies that are connected with these activities is both monotonous and infuriating. Catching 1,000 fish for the Angler Extraordinaire trophy will take well over five hours of constant fishing, and the in-game herb maps for Bailu and Niaowu are missing many of the required herbs. Some of them only seem to appear after a certain amount of time too, meaning players will need to scour every inch of the game multiple times to find them all.
16 The Elder Scrolls Online
Much like Shenmue 3, the fishing-related trophy in The Elder Scrolls Online can be a bit of a nightmare, particularly for those who take no enjoyment from fishing. It requires players to complete all of the game's angling-related achievements; something that less than a third of a percent of the game's PS4 playerbase has achieved at the time of writing.
If that weren't bad enough, players are also given a long list of collectibles to slowly cross off, with each type given its own trophy. Perhaps the most difficult trophy to unlock, however, is Emperor!, which requires players to beat out the rest of their peers in a grueling five-day campaign to become the Emperor of Tamriel. With enough people on board, it is technically possible to boost the trophy, but, even then, it requires a fair amount of effort.
15 Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Some first-person shooters struggle with being way too short. But when playing on a mode that means that one death and it's all over on the hardest difficulty setting, the game rightfully feels like it takes forever to successfully conclude.
But that's exactly what Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus wanted gamers to do in order to get the "Mein Leben" trophy. Want some real salt in that wound? The trophy itself was, somehow, only a bronze trophy. Collecting it as well as all of the others makes for a near-impossible platinum trophy.
14 Crypt Of The NecroDancer
It's quite possible to be on a first-name basis with everyone who has ever gotten a platinum trophy in this game. There are only eleven of them. And it's not like the game is unpopular, it's just that only 0.06% of people have ever beaten the game nine times with all nine characters back-to-back without messing up once.
With Nintendo coming out with beautiful soundtrack after beautiful soundtrack, it's no surprise that Crypt of the NecroDancer borrowed from some of those beautiful Legend of Zelda numbers. Sadly, whoever designed the trophies probably should have been aware of Nintendo's target audience when scaling the difficulty.
13 The Witness
Players will spend a lot of time getting even the hardest trophy so long as they are in control of getting to the top of the mountain. But The Witness makes players use all of their skill and a heavy dose of luck in order to get that platinum trophy.
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Many puzzle games need a guide in order to beat because they are so hard, but there are a few challenges in this game that are literally impossible. The expectation is that gamers will recognize and skip impossible puzzles, but it's not immediately consistent or obvious.
12 Next Up Hero
This platinum trophy was always technically possible but never technically achieved. It's already risky to depend on other players to attain achievements, but developer Digital Continue assumed that loads of people would be playing the game, so adding a trophy that required the community to complete 500 stages without anyone in the world failing seemed realistic.
While players in Skyrim are still noting how underrated the dungeons are, Next Up Hero was judged much the opposite. The gameplay was remarkably overrated and the sales never took off to justify this achievement. Some players managed to glitch it via featured mode, but it was never legitimately accomplished.
11 Earthfall
This game combines so many elements of a completionist's worst nightmare. It requires teams of players to kill various targets and only some of them will actually spawn. It's realistic that a given map will only spawn two of the one-hundred required targets. And that's not the worst part.
The PS4 has some amazing co-op games, but this won't be one of them for players that hunt trophies. Earthfall not only requires killing these randomly spawned targets, but also requires that the user is the one who fired the killing shot. If somebody else on the team got the killing blow… sorry, no credit, and hope it spawns again in the next fifty rounds.
10 Devil May Cry 5
This PS4, Xbox One, and PC title was almost guaranteed a spot on this list. After all, in a franchise all about super-powerful characters unleashing absurdly powerful, unnecessarily flashy moves at waves of hideous enemies, it’s no surprise that things get a little tense at times.
The roster of trophies in Devil May Cry 5 is a mixed bag, featuring a good amount that are simply tied to progression. The kicker, however, is that various difficulty modes have to be conquered too. In Hell And Hell mode, for instance, the player can’t survive a single hit, and the enemies are extraordinarily tough. Players will need to master Nero before even looking at such an achievement.
9 Bloodborne
The exclusive face that launched a thousand PS4 purchases, the dark, grim and gothic Bloodborne was one of the most convincing arguments to buy the system at the time of the game’s release. FromSoftware’s latest promised to be every bit as difficult as the Dark Souls series, and it certainly delivered on that front. Even having the best hunter tools in the game will scarcely help.
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As difficult as simply reaching the end credits can be, fans who want the platinum trophy will really have to go the extra mile. A good deal of Chalice Dungeon delving is needed to collect all the weapons (Hunter’s Essence), all three different endings will need to be seen (Yharnam Sunrise, Childhood’s Beginning, Honoring Wishes), some monstrous bosses will need to be slain, and much more. Not to mention the fact that the platinum means nothing without also acquiring the trophies from the DLC, The Old Hunters (where some truly devastating bosses dwell).
8 Monster Hunter World/Iceborne
As franchise fans will know, Monster Hunter World is a game that never really ends. Yes, the story can be wrapped up and the credits will roll, but this is a franchise about taking hundreds of hours, finally getting rare drops, completing armor sets, and learning new weapons. It stands to reason that the game’s platinum trophy will be a beast to get.
As always, there are a fair amount of simple progression-based trophies, but others require a whole lot of grind, plus RNG and luck in some cases. Players have lots of arena quests to do (so be sure to learn from the pros first), 500 large monsters to hunt, Hunter Rank 100 to reach, but the worst would probably be the trophies that require a huge collection of gold crowns (tiny and giant monsters), as that’s purely a matter of luck. Then there are the new Iceborne trophies!
7 Super Meat Boy
Speaking of games that are notoriously, viciously difficult, our next case study is none other than Super Meat Boy. For many, this old-school platformer is one of the most brutal titles to hit the genre in recent gaming memory, and its roster of trophies certainly attests to this.
Beat all Warpzones? Beat every separate hunk of the Dark World without dying (individually)? Attain 100% completion? Any gamer with the perseverance and skill to nab this platinum really is a platformer master.
6 The Evil Within
Honestly, this is a bit of a pick one's poison situation. For some players, The Evil Within 2 represents more of an overall challenge than the original, but The Evil Within’s Akumu mode is just a bit more traumatizing of an experience. Between the regular game and its three DLC packs (The Assignment, The Consequence, and The Executioner), there are 72 trophies available in this mind-bending survival horror title.
The trophies range from just plain time-consuming (upgrading all weapons, for instance) to incredibly difficult. Completing the game on Akumu mode (the hardest difficulty with additional restrictions such as any damage at all one-shotting the player) has pushed more than one player to uninstall the game.
5 Alien: Isolation
From one survival horror experience to another, Alien: Isolation is one of many horror games with a phenomenal female protagonist. Gamers who play through this have surely noticed two things: firstly, it’s a super tense and finely crafted experience that actually does the franchise justice. Secondly, it’s darn tough in place and players are probably becoming a finely-sliced entrée for the xenomorph several times before reaching the end of the game (for the few who ever get that far).
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The biggest problem, then, is the One Shot trophy, which requires the player to make it all the way through without dying. After a lot of practice and probably a reduction in difficulty some will barely manage that feat. This is not to mention all the other collectibles and busywork the platinum requires.
4 Gran Turismo Sport
As sad as it is, some platinum trophies become literally impossible to obtain over time. This was the case with the PS3’s Gran Turismo 5, which lost access to two online-based trophies (Course Designer and Proud Owner) when the servers were shut down. While PS4’s Gran Turismo Sport still has a possible platinum, it may as well be inaccessible too.
There are some very difficult racing challenges here, a lot of time-consuming ones (Record Number of Races), a demand for a gold rating in every Driving School challenge (and in every other type of challenge individually), a grind for 1,000,000 drift points, a grind for levels… in terms of the time sink, this is definitely a rough one.
3 Grand Theft Auto V
Rockstar continues to pump out the updates for Grand Theft Auto Online, partly because it’s still one of the biggest open-world titles on the market. Originally releasing on Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2013, the current-gen ports continue to sell like wildfire, and it’s really no surprise; there’s an outrageous amount to do here.
Whenever a game offers an absurd range of content, dedicated players are compelled to do it all, even if it's saving the money to buy the most absurdly expensive properties in the game. Grand Theft Auto V’s trophies demand a bit of everything, from excellent mission performances to grinding the online level all the way up to 100.
2 Furi
Furi doesn’t offer a huge, urban playground to cause mayhem in. Here, it’s just the player, a futuristic arena, and a ravenous, gigantic, ill-tempered boss that wants to slice the protagonist into salami with all the malice it can muster.
Furi is a relentless arcade boss rush that mixes hack and slash and old school shooter elements. It’s tough as steely, steely nails, and its trophy roster reflects that. S ranks on the hardest difficulties will test anyone.
1 The Last Of Us Remastered
With so many great narrative games on the PS4, Naughty Dog’s dystopian masterpiece is still one of the PlayStation’s finest exclusives. Kudos to those who have secured the platinum in Joel and Ellie’s harrowing adventure, because it doesn’t come easy.
Between survivor and grounded difficulties, a whole lot of collectibles, the heavy grind of the Firefly/Hunter trophies, and certain missable ones (That’s All I Got, Let’s Gear Up, I Want To Talk About It, and Master Of Unlocking), this can be a heck of a long road.
NEXT: The Last Of Us 2: Things You Didn't Know About The Cast
