The 12 Toughest Xbox Achievements to Unlock

Microsoft truly hit a home run when they decided to introduce Xbox Achievements to their games. What was initially viewed as a fun addition soon became an essential part of gaming culture. Hunting achievements boosted replay value, and the competition over Gamerscore turned into a friendly battle among friends. Today, there are gamers who focus solely on surpassing massive Gamerscore totals, along with websites and YouTube channels dedicated to tips and tricks on unlocking the toughest achievements.

Of course, not all achievements are created equal. Finishing a tutorial or the first level is a far cry from taking down a final boss on the hardest difficulty, armed only with a rusty fork. Game developers quickly raised the stakes, designing achievements that would challenge even the most dedicated Gamerscore hunters. Below are some of the most difficult Xbox achievements to unlock.

[Note: This list features games from both Xbox 360 and Xbox One, with some titles available on both platforms.]

Grand Theft Auto V - Career Criminal

Reward: 100 GS

Grand Theft Auto V is a remarkable game. The vibrant city of Los Santos (and its surrounding areas) is just as captivating as the main storyline and its missions. In fact, players often find themselves sidetracked by one of the many side quests, hidden secrets, or amusing character interactions. You can even take a break from the crime-heavy missions and spend an afternoon playing golf or hunting in the mountains.

To unlock the “Career Criminal” achievement, you’ll need to go above and beyond. It demands a complete 100 percent game completion, including every side mission, odd job, stunt jump, and more. While no single mission in GTA V is overly difficult, reaching 100 percent completion will take countless hours — and that’s if you stick to the task at hand.

Dead Rising - 7 Day Survivor

Reward: 20 GS

Dead Rising offers a thrilling game mode called “Infinity Mode,” which modifies the mechanics for an intense survival challenge, similar to horde modes in other games. In this mode, players are constantly losing health and must scavenge for food in a zombie-infested mall. The catch? The food doesn't respawn, your health drains completely in 20 minutes if you don’t find more, and save progress is disabled. To unlock this achievement, you need to survive for 14 hours in this hostile environment. Good luck!

Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Personal Decorator

Reward: 90 GS

Collecting unlockables has always been a core element of the fun in Call of Duty games. However, the “Personal Decorator” achievement in Black Ops III takes it to an entirely new level. To earn it, you must unlock all campaign weapons, attachments, camos, fully upgrade all cyber cores, and unlock or purchase every weapon, lethal, tactical, and cyber combat ability.

Once you’ve completed that, you need to finish the campaign on Veteran difficulty, then on Realistic difficulty. Additionally, you must complete every mission (on Veteran or harder) without restarting from a checkpoint, find all collectibles, complete all accolades, finish every campaign challenge, score over 35,000 in the training simulator, kill 2,000 enemies, and earn every campaign decoration. Quite the challenge!

An honorable mention for another tough Call of Duty achievement goes to the original Modern Warfare’s “Mile High Club.” To unlock it, you must complete a brutal mission (on Veteran) in under a minute — and don’t forget to finish it off with a precise headshot.

Mortal Kombat - My Kung Fu is Stronger

Reward: 60 GS

If you're aiming for this achievement, make sure you're a big fan of Mortal Kombat. This iconic fighting game was re-released for Xbox 360 in 2011, featuring online play and a fresh batch of achievements. The toughest of them all, however, is undoubtedly “My Kung Fu Is Stronger.” To earn those 60 points, you need to complete the following list of tasks:

That might not seem too bad, but there's a catch: you must accomplish all these tasks for each of the 28 different fighters in the game. That's a minimum of 672 hours of playtime, assuming you can complete all the objectives within a 24-hour span for each character.

Goat Simulator - The Flapmaster

Reward: 30 GS

Do you remember the Flappy Bird phenomenon? If not, it was a viral mobile game known for its charming graphics and frustratingly difficult gameplay, where players had to tap their phones to navigate a tiny bird through a series of obstacles. Though the game has been taken down from the App Store, its legacy continues through numerous clones.

Goat Simulator is already a ridiculous game, built around intentionally glitchy graphics and a lack of purpose. However, it’s still fun to run around as a goat smashing things. In the right locations, your goat can stumble upon a game called Flappy Goat, which plays exactly like Flappy Bird. The challenge here is getting a score of 10 to unlock the achievement, but with awful hit detection and sluggish button response, it’s surprisingly difficult and maddeningly frustrating.

War of the Worlds - I Am Arthur Clarke

Reward: 50 GS

You might be wondering: “What is War of the Worlds?” That’s totally fine because the 2011 Xbox Live Arcade game wasn’t exactly memorable. A basic side-scrolling platformer based on the film of the same name, it featured dull graphics and clunky controls. In short, it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Outlast is the “I Am Arthur Clarke” achievement, which demands players to complete the game in one sitting without dying—not even once. Given the game's already tough difficulty and its lack of popularity, unlocking this achievement is a monumental challenge. Only a handful of gamers have managed to earn it.

Outlast - Energiser

Reward: 200 GS

Playing through Outlast is already a heart-pounding ordeal, as it stands among the scariest games ever made. To unlock this achievement, players must finish the game on “Insane Difficulty,” but there’s a catch—they can’t reload their camera batteries. If you’ve never experienced Outlast, let us explain why this challenge is so brutal.

Much of the game occurs in total darkness, with players relying on the camcorder’s night vision. The more you use the camera, the quicker the battery drains. Soon, you'll find yourself navigating a terrifying game in near-complete darkness. No thank you!

Elite: Dangerous - Well Trained

Reward: 25 GS

If you’re one of those players who enjoys breezing through the tutorial to snag easy achievements, then you’ll want to steer clear of Elite: Dangerous. This space exploration and flight simulator, though praised by critics, features one of the most challenging tutorials ever created. It’s frustrating, but somehow, they’ve attached an achievement to completing it.

Fewer than a handful of players have managed to unlock this achievement, making it one of the hardest to get in the Xbox library. The tutorial missions require near-perfect flying and landing maneuvers, skills that are incredibly tough to master.

Limbo - No Point in Dying

Reward: 100 GS

The 100 points that come with unlocking this achievement are tempting, but be ready for a lot of frustration if you decide to go after them. Limbo is a game where nearly everything is lethal—water, falling from heights, spikes, huge spiders, bear traps, and more. Essentially, the entire game is one huge death trap.

To earn this achievement, you must complete the entire game in one go without dying more than five times. With enough practice, it should take about an hour, but you’ll need to memorize every trap and solve every puzzle in order to minimize your deaths.

Rock Band 2 - Bladder of Steel

Reward: 25 GS

The plastic instrument trend may have come to an end, but we’ll always remember those late nights of pretending to be a musical legend with Rock Band and its sequels/spinoffs. However, if you're aiming for the “Bladder of Steel” achievement, you’d better be ready for a real test.

To unlock this achievement, players must complete the entire Endless Setlist, which includes every non-DLC song in the game, all in a row without pausing or failing. This means nearly seven hours of continuous jamming! If your batteries run out around hour five? Tough luck. If your drummer misses a beat and fails a song in hour six? Too bad. And bathroom breaks? Not an option.

Gears of War 4 - Seriously 4.0

Reward: 200 GS

Every Gears of War installment features a “Seriously” achievement, and they’re all brutally tough. The latest in the series, “Seriously 4.0,” is essentially the ultimate challenge: achieve 100 percent completion across the entire game. To get this, players must complete the game on Insane difficulty, reach re-up Level 10 (similar to Call of Duty prestige modes), collect all 141 multiplayer ribbons, hit rank placements in each mode, level up all five Horde Mode classes to level 10, max out five Horde skills to level five, and finish all Horde maps. It’s a mix of hardcore gameplay and grueling grind that only the most dedicated can tackle.

Cloudberry Kingdom - Shenanigans!

Reward: 20 GS

Cloudberry Kingdom is your typical platformer that was launched for Xbox Live Arcade in 2013. The achievement you’re aiming for requires you to beat Chapter 7, which sounds easy enough until you realize that it includes the nearly impossible Level 319 (and Level 320 isn't much better). These procedurally generated levels are chaotic with a ton of enemies, making it nearly impossible for a player to clear.

Even watching the A.I. complete the level won’t really give you any useful tips. To finish it, you’ll need to execute extremely precise movements and jumps—one wrong move, and you're done. Only attempt this achievement if you have an obscene amount of free time on your hands (and enjoy torturing yourself).