Since debuting its spin on Microsoft's achievements in July 2008, Sony's own trophy system has evolved into an important cornerstone of the PlayStation ecosystem. Once viewed merely as just a similar feature during the early days of the PS3's lifecycle, hunting Platinum trophies in particular has become an addictive pass time for a lot of players since then. To celebrate the arrival of the PS5, the fourth PlayStation system to utilize, the system received an updated facelift last year that demonstrates it's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future either.
While plenty of PlayStation trophy lists exist that are hard to complete thanks to the sheer difficulty of the games they're a part of, the number of trophies that are impossible to earn regardless of the player's skill level grows every year. Whether that's down to the realities of the internet age, or simply a glitch that's never been patched, there now exists a subsection of games that hunters should be wary about delving into thanks to unobtainable trophies.
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Online Trophies Tied to Dead Servers
Between the imminently approaching 10th anniversary of the PS4, and the accolades its successor has already achieved, a section of the gaming community at large has likely long since put away their PlayStation 3 consoles for good. Being the console that kicked off the whole phenomenon though ensures that the platform still remains a bountiful hunting ground, containing thousands of games for any player looking for some nostalgia-themed trophies. With the rise of the internet having a profound impact on the industry and retro gaming in general, the PS3's library is still conversely where the majority of unobtainable PlayStation trophies also now reside.
Since Sony's trophy system became mandatory for all games in 2009, countless developers have created trophies that are locked behind completing specific tasks in multiplayer centric modes. The problem for hunters when it comes to older platforms is the fact that these trophies essentially come complete with expiration dates that go off whenever an online game's servers are shut down for good.
Once an online mode is gone forever, there's currently no way for new players to earn these trophies or the Platinums within these games. While PlayStation's first party studios like Insomniac Games have created easier Platinums in the likes of Marvel's Spider-Man, a wide selection of the studio's older PS3 titles now feature trophies that can never be obtained again because of the temporary nature of multiplayer gaming.
Insomniac's Resistance 2, for example, features a whole host of multiplayer and co-op themed trophies that were once tied to its underappreciated modes, that are now impossible to unlock. With the PS4 naturally about to suffer the same gradual phasing out over the next few years, it's inevitable that this list will continue to grow exponentially in the future. That becomes evident when examining the platform's early titles, like DriveClub, which now features a long list of multiplayer centric trophies that are unachievable now that the game's servers are gone for good.
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Grand Theft Auto 5's PS3 Bounty Trophy
Not all of the PS3's unobtainable trophies can be attributed to a server that has been shut down forever, though. Several multiplayer games on the platform, that are still technically playable online, also have trophies that are impossible to earn thanks to removal of certain aspects of the game. None of these are arguably bigger than Rockstar Games' own Grand Theft Auto 5.
In 2017 Rockstar took the curious decision to remove the ability for PS3 players to place bounties on each other, in an ironic effort to prevent illicit money laundering activities from happening within its crime simulator. As a result, for several years GTA Online players on the platform have been unable to earn the "Run Like the Wind" Trophy. Calls for the function to be restored over the last four years have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears, as the original version has received fewer updates over time. With the game set to have its PS3 servers shut down at the end of the year, ahead of GTA 5's PS5 and Xbox Series X release, it now seems unlikely that this will be rectified.
Rockstar Games is far from the only developer to take a similar course of action though, with some of the other biggest names in gaming also removing trophy dependent aspects of their titles. For years, PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 players have been unable to progress through it's League mode, in order to earn the trophies tied specifically to that section of the game. In a similar vein, EA's FIFA franchise routinely falls victim to this same fate, with the PS4's FIFA 14, 15, 16, and 18, all having trophies that players will never be able to pop again thanks to the removal of certain online content.
Unpatched PS4 Games
The PlayStation 3's back catalogue and dormant online centric games aren't the only places that hunters have to be on the lookout for impossible trophies, there's plenty of recently released games out there that contain similar obstacles as well. Often unpredictable software glitches can cause a trophy to be impossible to earn even if a player does everything required of them. While bugs like this are a fairly common occurrence in modern gaming, the vast majority end up being patched and subsequently fixed with a little time.
However for a lot of indie developers in particular, dedicating extra time towards trophy-related issues can often be viewed as a task that's not worth pursuing in the long run. As it stands right now, games like Assetto Corsa Competizione, Smite, and Kerbal Space Program, all contain unobtainable trophies within their respective PS4 versions that show no signs of being fixed anytime soon. This has the added effect of making the handful of players that were able to nab the Platinum trophy in these games before they broke, some of the luckiest people within the entire PlayStation ecosystem.
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