Trophy & Achievement Guide

1. The List at a Glance

There are 34 achievements; the PlayStation list has 35 because it includes the Platinum, Pywel Legend, which unlocks once every other trophy is earned and needs no DLC; on Xbox and PC there is no equivalent, so the tracker below has 34 cards. The rest break down into 4 Gold, 10 Silver and 20 Bronze.

The shape of the list matters more than any single entry. Only four trophies come from the story (section 4) and one from moving the camp; the other 29 are "complete all X challenges": 27 of them one per category of the in-game Challenges journal, and two Gold trophies for finishing every exploration category and every mastery category. That is why the roadmap has two steps rather than a trophy-by-trophy route: unlock the challenges first, then let them accumulate while you play (section 2).

The numbers

2. The Challenges Behind Them

This is the mechanism the trophies hang on. Challenges are unlocked by picking up Sealed Abyss Artifacts in the open world — 141 of them, spread over Hernand, Demeniss, Pailune, Delesyia and the Crimson Desert — and each one also pays a skill point. The catch is that a challenge only counts what you do after its artifact is collected: nothing is credited retroactively, apart from some cumulative totals. The artifacts show up as blue glints along roads when you use the sword's Guiding Light.

Hence the roadmap. Step 1: unfog the map by ringing the eight hidden bells (the FAQ has the verified answer), activate the fast-travel points, refine your gear to level 5 or 6 and collect every Sealed Abyss Artifact — budget 25 hours or more for this alone. Step 2: play the story and work the challenges as you go. Two of the Life challenges are singled out as the long ones: Life 4, Tiny Citizens of Grasslands (one of every insect and arthropod), and Life 12, Cave Exploration Log (100 caves).

Every category, its count and its trophy

The names in brackets are the in-game journal titles for each exploration category, and the group names (Goyen's Advice, White Crow's Gaze, Master Du's Dare, Alustin's Trials) are the journal tabs they are listed under. The Legendary Animals category has no trophy of its own and only counts towards Expert Explorer.

Two of these categories have their own pages on this site: the 40 Abyss puzzles on the Abyss Puzzles page and the 60 Secret Places on the Secret Places page, each with its own tracker. The Abyss set also gates the hidden ending — see the Epilogue.

3. The Four Missable Trophies

One general rule covers them all: do the challenges as early as possible, do not liberate enemy camps until you are done with the challenges, so you do not run out of places to do them, and never sell, discard or break the ten Special Weapons.

4. Story and Camp Trophies

Four trophies are handed out by the main quests and cannot be missed, per both sources. A fifth, Proud Returnee, is tied to the camp but is not automatic.

• 1

  Novice Adventurer (Bronze) — end of Chapter 1

  Complete Chapter 1 of the main quests. Our Chapter 1 page covers the Trials of Kindness and the first Abyss Rift that lead there.

• 2

  Master Camper (Bronze) — activating the camp at Howling Hill

  Complete the activation of the camp at Howling Hill. It comes in Chapter 3, which is where our Chapter 3 page has the Greymanes founding it; the Companions page describes what the camp grows into.

• 3

  Protector of Pailune (Silver) — end of Chapter 7

  Complete Chapter 7 of the main quests. The in-game text credits you with freeing Pailune from the Black Bears and the Jackals — the same Jackals the Brilliant Tactician challenge needs alive (section 3). Walkthrough: Chapter 7.

• 4

  Expert Storyteller (Gold) — every main quest

  Complete all main quests — the prologue, the twelve chapters and the epilogue. It ranks among the two hardest trophies because of the boss fights along the way. The Bestiary has the strategies the sources give for each of them, and the walkthrough runs from the Prologue to the Epilogue.

• 5

  Proud Returnee (Silver) — moving the camp to Pailune

  Complete the camp relocation to Pailune. Prerequisites: finish Chapter 7, complete the Reconstructing Pailune questline (six expeditions), finish the main story and the faction quests, then gather what the relocation costs. The resource total is the reason this is a late trophy: 24.9K Armor, 23.5K Stone, 30K Wood, 47.3K Food and 517K Money. Our Companions page has the list of the Greymane questlines, Reconstructing Pailune among them.

5. Trophy Tracker

One card per achievement — the twenty Bronze, then the ten Silver, then the four Gold. The Platinum, Pywel Legend, has no card because it is awarded for the other 34. Ticks are saved in this browser and, if you are signed in, in your account with the rest of the Crimson Desert guide.