The popup that appears when an achievement is achieved.
Achievements are a way to gradually guide new players into Minecraft and give them challenges to complete. There are currently 30 achievements.
In an interview by Gamasutra before February 25, 2011,[1] 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.
Some of the achievements are available in the Xbox 360 Edition, totaling 400 gamerscore.[2] 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 will also not be obtainable in Creative Mode, or if the map has been edited in Creative Mode. Enabling Host Privileges in multiplayer will also disable achievements.
Video
Achievement/video
List of achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Prerequisites (PC Only) | Actual requirements (if different) | Version | Xbox points earned | Internal ID (PC Only) | Scoreboard name (PC Only) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Taking Inventory | Press '[defaults to E]' to open your inventory. | None | Open your inventory. The description will match the configured inventory key. | Both | 10G | 0 | openInventory |
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Getting Wood | Attack a tree until a block of wood pops out | Taking Inventory | Pick up Wood from the ground. | Both | 10G | 1 | mineWood |
|
Benchmarking | Craft a workbench with four blocks of planks | Getting Wood | Pick up a Crafting Table from your inventory's crafting field or a Crafting Table. | Both | 10G | 2 | buildWorkBench |
|
Time to Mine! | Use planks and sticks to make a pickaxe | Benchmarking | Pick up a Wooden Pickaxe from a Crafting Table. | Both | 10G | 3 | buildPickaxe |
|
Hot Topic | Construct a furnace out of eight stone blocks | Time to Mine! | Pick up a Furnace from a Crafting Table. | Both | 15G | 4 | buildFurnace |
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Acquire Hardware | Smelt an iron ingot | Hot Topic | Remove an Iron Ingot from a Furnace. | Both | 15G | 5 | acquireIron |
|
Time to Farm! | Use planks and sticks to make a hoe | Benchmarking | Pick up a Wooden Hoe from a Crafting Table. | Both | 10G | 6 | buildHoe |
|
Bake Bread | Turn wheat into bread | Time to Farm! | Pick up Bread from a Crafting Table. | Both | 20G | 7 | makeBread |
|
The Lie | Wheat, sugar, milk, and eggs! | Time to Farm! | Pick up a Cake from a Crafting Table. | Both | 40G | 8 | bakeCake |
|
Getting an Upgrade | Construct a better pickaxe | Time to Mine! | Pick up a Stone Pickaxe from a Crafting Table | Both | 15G | 9 | buildBetterPickaxe |
|
Delicious Fish | Catch and cook a fish! | Hot Topic | Remove a Cooked Fish from a Furnace. | Both | 15G | 10 | cookFish |
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On A Rail | Travel by minecart at least 1 km from where you started | Acquire Hardware | Travel by minecart to a point at least 1 km (500 m in Xbox 360 Edition) from where you started. Distance is measured as the crow flies (Direct Distance), not Manhattan distance (Distance from the rails themselves). | Both | 40G | 11 | onARail |
|
Time to Strike! | Use planks and sticks to make a sword | Benchmarking | Pick up a Wooden Sword from a Crafting Table. | Both | 10G | 12 | buildSword |
|
Monster Hunter | Attack and destroy a monster | Time to Strike! | A "monster" is defined as any hostile mob. | Both | 20G | 13 | killEnemy |
|
Cow Tipper | Harvest some leather | Time to Strike! | Pick up Leather from the ground. | Both | 15G | 14 | killCow |
|
When Pigs Fly | Fly a pig off a cliff | Cow Tipper | Use a saddle to ride a pig, then have the pig get hurt from fall damage while riding it. | Both | 40G | 15 | flyPig |
|
Sniper Duel | Kill a skeleton or wither skeleton with an arrow from more than 50 meters | Monster Hunter | "50 meters" is 50 blocks away. | PC | N/A | 16 | snipeSkeleton |
|
DIAMONDS! | Acquire diamonds with your iron tools | Acquire Hardware | Pick up a Diamond from a Crafting Table or the ground. | PC | N/A | 17 | diamonds |
|
We Need to Go Deeper | Build a portal to the Nether | DIAMONDS! | Enter a Nether Portal. | PC | N/A | 18 | portal |
| Into The Nether | Acquire Hardware | Xbox | 40G | N/A | N/A | |||
|
Return to Sender | Destroy a Ghast with a fireball | We Need to Go Deeper | Kill a Ghast using a Ghast’s fireball. | PC | N/A | 19 | ghast |
|
Into Fire | Relieve a Blaze of its rod | We Need to Go Deeper | Pick up a Blaze Rod from the ground. | PC | N/A | 20 | blazeRod |
|
Local Brewery | Brew a potion | Into Fire | Pick up a Potion from a Brewing Stand. An already-created potion placed and removed qualifies. | PC | N/A | 21 | potion |
|
The End? | Locate the End | Into Fire | Enter an End Portal. | PC | N/A | 22 | theEnd |
|
The End. | Defeat the Ender Dragon | The End? | Enter the End exit portal while being in the End. | PC | N/A | 23 | theEnd2 |
|
Enchanter | Use a book, obsidian and diamonds to construct an enchantment table | DIAMONDS! | Pick up an Enchantment Table from a Crafting Table. | PC | N/A | 24 | enchantments |
|
Overkill | Deal eight hearts of damage in a single hit | Enchanter | Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit (The description is wrong.) | PC | N/A | 25 | overkill |
|
Librarian | Build some bookshelves to improve your enchantment table | Enchanter | Pick up a Bookshelf from a Crafting Table. | PC | N/A | 26 | bookcase |
|
Adventuring Time[upcoming] | Discover all biomes | The End? | unknown | PC | N/A | unknown | exploreAllBiomes |
|
The Beginning?[upcoming] | Spawn the Wither | The End. | PC | N/A | unknown | spawnWither | |
|
The Beginning.[upcoming] | Kill the Wither | The Beginning? | PC | N/A | unknown | killWither | |
|
Beaconator[upcoming] | Create a full beacon | The Beginning. | Place a beacon block with a 4-level pyramid. | PC | N/A | unknown | fullBeacon |
|
Repopulation[upcoming] | Breed two cows with wheat | Cow Tipper | PC | N/A | unknown | breedCow | |
| Construct one type of each tool (one pickaxe, one spade, one axe and one hoe). | Benchmarking | Xbox | 15G | N/A | N/A | |||
|
Construct a Dispenser. | Acquire Hardware | Xbox | 20G | N/A | N/A | ||
| Befriend five Wolves. | Monster Hunter | This does not have to be in a single game, so multiple games or reloading old saves does count toward this achievement. | Xbox | 30G | N/A | N/A |
- 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 achievement interface with the first achievement done.
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 (on a PC or Mac) 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 uses the standard Xbox 360 achievement interface instead of the tree display.
History
| beta | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 | Achievements added.
The first achievement confirmed by Notch was When Pigs Fly, although it was more explained than named. The Beta 1.4 update was originally intended to include achievements and statistics; However, implementation was pulled from the release because it was not yet functional.[3] It was implemented into Beta 1.5 instead. | ||||
| 1.9pre6 | Implemented the Dragon Egg, and changed the image used by The End. Before, it was that of a Monster Spawner; This was changed upon its addition. | ||||
| r | |||||
| 1.5 | Achievements no longer reset when downgrading Minecraft. | ||||
| u | |||||
| 1.7 | 13w36a | Updated the Achievement system, works now individually per world/server. | |||
| Added more achievements: Adventuring Time, The Beginning?, The Beginning., Beaconator, and Repopulation. | |||||
| Achievements can now be used as objectives in the Scoreboard system. | |||||
March 18th update
On March 18, 2011, Notch talked about achievements and statistics on his blog.[4] He said the following:
| “ |
|
„ |
Also, he added that achievements will not be chores:
| “ |
|
„ |
It could be argued that some of the achievements, such as On a Rail and Leader of the Pack, require grinding, however.
Preview video
On April 8, 2011, a video was uploaded to YouTube showing weather, statistics and achievements.
Bugs
- The achievement Overkill actually requires to deal nine (and not eight) hearts of damage in a single hit (verified from source code).
- Statistics and achievements sometimes reset for no reason at all.
- Statistics and achievements reset when you update your minecraft.jar such as adding or deleting mods.
- The achievement The End? cannot be obtained properly in 1.4 or in 1.5.
- It is possible to obtain "The End?" by pressing "r" many times while entering the nether.
- GUI will not use custom textures from texture packs.
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.
- You can reset all of your achievements by deleting the "stats" folder in the .minecraft app data folder. 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.
- 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.
- The spiked achievements are achievements that are hard to accomplish.
- Adventuring Time is a reference to the TV show Adventure Time.
See also
- Tutorials/Achievement Guide
References
- ↑ Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33220/Interview_Markus_Persson_On_Bringing_Achievements_to_Minecraft.php
- ↑ Minecraft achievements (xbox360achievements.org)
- ↑ http://twitter.com/notch/status/53362371372138496
- ↑ The Word of Notch: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/3940195633/the-state-of-minecraft

