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."

- Notch

Achievements are a way to gradually guide new players into Minecraft and give them challenges to complete. There are currently 33 achievements in the PC edition and 20 achievements in the Xbox 360 Edition.

In an interview by Gamasutra before February 25, 2011, Notch said: “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."

He also said: “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.”

Finally, asked if such a move would risk leading players down a preset path, rather than encouraging exploration and invention as Minecraft does in its current state, Notch said: “Definitely not. I’d want these achievements to feel like things you can try, rather than these are things you have to do. People can follow them, but only if they want to.”

Achievements can be completed in any game mode, including Creative. They can be only done on Survival in the Xbox 360 Edition, and once you switch to Creative, you cannot go back on Survival to complete any, because when you switch to Creative, it disables achievements.

Xbox 360 Edition
Some of the achievements are available in the Xbox 360 Edition, totaling 400 gamerscore. Notable differences include On A Rail, which requires 500 m of track instead of 1 km (due to smaller world size at the time of release), and some new achievements. The achievements are independent of each other, so you can, for example, get Getting Wood before Taking Inventory. Achievements are also not obtainable in Creative mode, or if the map has been edited in Creative mode. Enabling Host Privileges in multiplayer will also disable achievements.

Playstation 3 Edition
The achievements in the Playstation 3 Edition act as trophies. The 20 from the Xbox 360 Edition are included, as well as 9 additional trophies.

Upcoming achievements

 * Notes
 * For achievements which may be obtained by picking up items, transferring an item from a chest to your inventory does not qualify; you must throw the item on the ground first.

Interface


The button to access the Achievements screen is found on the "pause" screen of Minecraft. That is, when in a world, you would hit the 'Escape' key to bring up the screen (from which you can also exit the game). Next to it is a button to access the Statistics interface.

Minecraft's achievement system involves a tree composed of achievements, some of which must be completed before others can be. 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 now simply shows the tree. The background of the tree mimics 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.

Test achievements can also be found within Beta 1.4's source code before the 1.5 release, and on the test video posted by Notch. Among these are opening the inventory, mining wood and building a workbench.

The Xbox 360 Edition and PlayStation 3 Edition use the standard Xbox 360 achievement and PlayStation 3 trophy interfaces, respectively, instead of the tree display.

Trivia

 * The Lie is a reference to the Internet meme "The Cake is a Lie", which itself is a reference to the video game Portal.
 * Another reference to one of Valve's games is the achievement name On A Rail, which is the title of one of the chapters in Half-Life.
 * If you're using the joke Language Pirate Speak, The Lie is named Pirates Don't Get Portal References.
 * You can reset all of your achievements in a world by deleting the "stats" folder in the world file. Beware that it also resets statistics.
 * "Achievement Get!" is a reference to a decade-old proto-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.
 * We Need To Go Deeper is a reference to the movie Inception.
 * Return to Sender refers to a message often written on non-personal letters, usually in case that a letter ends up at an incorrect address. It is also the name of a song by Elvis Presley.
 * Achievements can be obtained in any game mode. Because of this, it is easy to get more difficult achievements such as On A Rail, When Pigs Fly, and Sniper Duel, and others by using Creative mode.
 * Return to Sender is an exception to the above, because it requires a Ghast fireball, and Ghasts only attack the player in Survival, Hardcore, and Adventure mode.
 * Although, commands can be used to obtain the achievement in creative mode.
 * When Pigs Fly is a reference to a well known saying meaning something absurd that would never happen.
 * Monster Hunter is the name of a series of games created, developed, and owned by Capcom.
 * When Pigs Fly requires Cow Tipper. Cows drop leather, but there is no crafting recipe for a saddle.
 * Cow Tipper can be obtained by killing a horse.
 * Cow Tipper can be obtained by fishing.
 * The spiked achievements are achievements that are hard to accomplish.
 * Adventuring Time is a reference to the TV show Adventure Time.
 * Diamonds to you! is a reference to Youtuber BebopVox.
 * Sniper Duel became much more difficult when monsters started despawning depending on their distance from the player. 50 blocks is far enough that skeletons will despawn fairly quickly (usually within a couple of minutes or less), and will not move around.
 * When using a command to give an achievement, a player will receive all previously required achievements as well as the one being given, spamming chat.