The Switch Would Be Irresistible With Achievements

Give us our dopamine dings, Ninty.

Super Mario Odyssey Switch
Source: Game Rant

Since launching in 2017, the Nintendo Switch has been an emphatic success story, selling millions upon millions of units with excellent exclusive after excellent exclusive.

Nintendo’s innovative hybrid console boasts plenty of smart features, the most eye-catching one being the ability to take it with you handheld without any fuss before docking it to then play through the television when you arrive home, right where you left off. How many people do you think have milked a cow in 1-2-Switch while riding the London Underground? At least a dozen, I’d say.

This pick up and play appeal has meant that many have become hooked on the Switch over the years, and I’ve certainly spent my fair hundreds of hours exploring Galar, killing at the behest of a banana, and failing miserably at Smash. But there’s one addition that could practically make me fuse myself to my Switch: achievements.

Legend of Zelda E3 2016
Source: Kotaku

Back when the Switch was first revealed, I pondered whether or not it should have achievements and landed on a 50/50 thought. While it would add a lot of replay ability to games, I thought seeing achievements pop up in the likes of Mario and Zelda would feel out of place, wrong even.

Two years later, I absolutely want the Switch to have achievements.

As shallow (and perhaps aggressively lame) as it is, I almost always opt for a version of a game on a system that supports achievements so that I can keep those dopamine levels balanced. I’ve become conditioned to love achievement hunting (even though my schedule pretty much prohibits that these days), it providing replayability and satisfaction in completion that a simple credits roll cannot match.

It’s also a large part of the reason why I seldom buy ports of older games on the Switch, as tempting as they may be. Resident Evil 4 calls to me often, though I can’t really reconcile its higher price than on other systems as well as the fact that I wouldn’t hear some kind of comforting ping for finally chopping down Salazar, the tiny weirdo.

I love my Switch, it getting the second most playtime out of all of my consoles despite owning an Xbox One for much longer. I also love almost every first-party title Nintendo put out and think I could actually play it more than my PS4 this year, which is dying a slow (but absolutely not quiet) death by overheating. Adding achievements would make the Switch as my go-to an almost certainty, so much so that I don’t think I would ever be off it.

It’s been a long time since the Switch launched and Nintendo have shown no signs of even wanting to add achievements, but it would be a missed opportunity if they didn’t — player retention and time investment would no doubt surge. They could even offer Gold Points to the completionists for their biggest games, keeping them in the ecosystem and enticing more players to visit the store.

While Nintendo don’t always follow modern conventions, this is one I think they should. The only concern for them, I guess, is how many cases of haemorrhoids they will be blamed for when players sit on the toilet for hours on end while on the hunt for all those korok seeds.

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