Achievement

"I like achievements. I know a lot of people don't, but I like them. I've had the idea to make achievements kind of like the in-game questing.

''So you'd be able to see the first achievement in a tree of achievements, and you unlock the top ones first before you can unlock the ones further down. So the first one might be to chop down a tree, or kill a chicken, and then these branch into more things you can do. Hopefully it would encourage people to try new areas.

''It could converge into a big task, like kill a dragon or something, which would put a kind of narrative into the achievement tree.

''I'd want these achievements to feel like things that you can try, rather than these are things you have to do. People can follow them, but only if they want to."

- Notch, in an interview with Gamasutra

Achievements are a way to gradually guide new players into Minecraft and give them challenges to complete. In the Java Edition, a system of advancements accomplishes this instead.

Obtaining
Achievements can only be done in Survival mode, and if the game is switched to Creative or host privileges are enabled, they are permanently disabled, so that going back to Survival or disabling host privileges will not re-enable them. Achievements are independent of one another, allowing players to get them in any order.

There are 80 achievements in the Xbox 360 Edition, Xbox One Edition, Wii U Edition and Nintendo Switch Edition, 79 achievements in the Pocket Edition, and 81 trophies in the PlayStation 3 Edition, PlayStation 4 Edition and PlayStation Vita Edition.

When an achievement is obtained, it is announced to all players in chat.

In the Xbox console editions, and in Bedrock editions such as Pocket or Windows 10, achievements can only be earned by using an Xbox Live account. They are not tracked separately for each separate Minecraft world, but are globally tracked at the level of the Xbox Live account, and separately per game edition. Achievements grant the player gamerscore, totaling 1,855 on Xbox and 1,750 in Bedrock editions. As with all Xbox Live achievements, Minecraft achievements in these editions cannot be reset.

The achievements in the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita editions act as trophies. As with all PlayStation Network achievements, Minecraft achievements in these editions cannot be reset.

Java Edition




The Java edition achievement system involved a tree composed of achievements. Originally the interface showed the achievement tree on the left, and a 'mini-map' of the tree on the right. The mini-map was removed in the final version, which then simply showed the tree. The background of the tree mimicked the world with dirt at the top with stone spanning below, bedrock at the bottom, and ores distributed as they would be in the world. By clicking and dragging, one could view different branches of the achievement tree. Using the scroll wheel on the mouse zoomed in and out of this display, making it easier to see, at a glance, what had been achieved and was still needed to achieve.

In this screen, achievements had hover-text, which became more detailed the closer the player was to achieving them:
 * Attained achievements were given as "Name/Description/Taken!" (for instance "Getting Wood/Attack a tree until a block of wood pops out/Taken!").
 * Unattained achievements for which the player had achieved all the prerequisites were given as "Name/Description".
 * Unattained achievements for which the player was one or two prerequisites away were given as "Name/Requires X" (for instance "The End./Requires 'The End?'").
 * Unattained achievements for which the player was three prerequisites away were given as "???/Requires X" (for instance "???/Requires 'The Beginning?'").
 * Unattained achievements for which the player was four prerequisites away were not given; there was just an icon, no hovertext at all.
 * Unattained achievements for which the player was more than four prerequisites away were not shown, even as an icon.

Achievements were earned on a per-player, per-world basis: each new player in each new world had the potential to fill out a new achievement tree.

When an achievement was earned, "Achievement Get!" and the name of the achievement would be broadcast in chat to any players in the world. "Achievement Get!" was a reference to a decade-old meme: early screenshots of Super Mario Sunshine used the Japanese localization, and featured Mario grabbing a Shine Sprite with the prominent text "Shine Get!". Due to the prominence of the game and the attention given to these screenshots, "[noun] Get!" subsequently became a popular term used on image boards as post count benchmarks, which Notch occasionally visits.

Achievements could be obtained in any game mode. Because of this, it was possible to achieve more difficult achievements such as On A Rail, When Pigs Fly, and Sniper Duel, and others by switching into Creative mode.
 * Return to Sender was an exception to the above, because it required a ghast fireball, and ghasts only attack the player in Survival, Hardcore, and Adventure mode, although it could still be obtained through the command.

There was an command which could give and take achievements. When using this command to give an achievement, a player would receive all previously-required achievements in addition to the one being given.

One way a player could reset all achievements in a world was by deleting the "stats" folder in the world file, which would also reset statistics.

When Pigs Fly required Cow Tipper, as cows drop leather, though there was no crafting recipe for a saddle.

Trivia

 * Achievements such as Delicious Fish cannot be rewarded if you hook up the furnace to a hopper, as you are not getting the item directly from the furnace.
 * A player can get both Time to Mine! and Getting an Upgrade at the same time by crafting a stone, iron, gold, or diamond pickaxe before crafting a wooden pickaxe.