Since their initial iteration in 2005, Secret Achievements have remained entirely hidden from Xbox users. If you wanted to unlock one of these achievements, the words "the more you play, the more likely you are to unlock it" would appear.
While this was useful if you wanted to avoid spoilers for late-game content, for achievement hunters the feature often meant leaving your console or app to use a third-party site or application. Now, Xbox users can reveal Secret Achievements, or, if they prefer, hide them.
How to Reveal Secret Achievements on Your Xbox (or Hide Them)
As announced in a post on Xbox Wire in May 2022, you can now reveal Secret Achievements on your Xbox. To do this on your Xbox console:
Head to Xbox Guide > Game Activity > Achievements.
Once you're on the achievements page, navigate to a Secret Achievement.
Select the achievement to find the "Reveal details" option.
If you click on the "Reveal details" option, the text, "This achievement is secret. The more you play, the more likely you are to unlock it!" will switch to the actual requirements for you to unlock the achievement.
To hide the achievement, you will see that the "Reveal details" option will have turned into "Hide details". Click "Hide details" and the revealed requirements will be removed.
To reveal or hide Secret Achievements in the Xbox app:
Swipe to My Library. Select a game, scroll to Achievements, then choose a Secret Achievement. Finally, select Reveal to see it.
Why Hide Xbox Achievements?
Hiding achievements helps you avoid any potential spoilers while adding an extra layer of difficulty to your achievement hunting experience.
Because Secret Achievements tend to make up the final portion of an achievement list, some requirements to unlock them state end-game features or confrontations. If you read these requirements before finishing a game's narrative, it could potentially ruin your experience of a game.
Therefore, hiding Secret Achievements helps to guarantee your gaming experience.
How Revealing Xbox's Secret Achievements Can Change Your Experience
The ability to choose whether to hide or reveal Secret Achievements represents a great step forward for Xbox. You can make your own decisions and reveal Secret Achievements when you, the player, wishes to do so.
Finishing your game's main story and then revealing Secret Achievements once you're confident the game's spoilers have been avoided both fixes the issue of potential spoilers and gets rid of the need to rely on external websites or guides to perfect a game's achievements.
On the other hand, this also gives you the option to keep your Secret Achievements hidden to maintain the authentic achievement-hunting experience. You could even keep Secret Achievements hidden to encourage further exploration in a game, making you actively search areas you otherwise wouldn't but without the threat of never unlocking the achievement.
What This Means for Xbox as a Service
Following Xbox features such as Cloud Gaming expanding device compatibility beyond consoles, the changes to Secret Achievements are another example of Microsoft's desire to hand players as much choice as possible.
This follows a trend Microsoft has been pursuing since 2016: encouraging variety and player choice, with services like Play Anywhere aiming to unify PC and Xbox gaming. With Xbox looking to provide you with more choices for gaming, keep an eye on the best sites for Xbox fans to ensure you don't miss any changes that could benefit your gaming experience.
Are You Going to Reveal Secret Achievements?
With Microsoft now allowing players to reveal Xbox Secret Achievements, the service has been streamlined, giving players the choice to curate their own experience. The user-friendly Secret Achievements mean you're all set to work on that Gamerscore without having to worry about missing anything.
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