Are you tired of having fewer platinum trophies than your PlayStation Network friends? Do you want to improve your PlayStation trophy stats, or maybe even reach the coveted Trophy Level 999 someday? Would you like to climb the leaderboards and astonish your fellow gamers with an impressive trophy collection? If so, you’ve come to the right place, as this guide is here to provide you with valuable tips and resources that will help you take your PlayStation trophy hunting to the next level, and guide you on your way to becoming the next trophy hunting legend. Without further ado, here are eight essential tips to help you become a great PlayStation trophy hunter.
Play the Games YOU Enjoy
The first step to being a great trophy hunter is so simple, but many times forgotten by gamers, who can’t see the forest through the trees: just play the games you want to play. It’s so easy, if you play the games you love, many trophies will come naturally. For beginner trophy hunters, I would advise that you pick one of your favorite PlayStation 3, PS4, or PS5 games and make it your mission to make that game the first platinum trophy you earn. The reason for this is that when you play games that you enjoy, the trophy list requirements become far less tedious, and you will be more inclined to reach the platinum than if you had played a game you didn’t like.
This advice also applies to veteran trophy hunters, as even the most experienced players will eschew games they really want to play because they can earn a quick plat elsewhere. In summation, whether you have one or 1,000 platinum trophies, you should always play the games that you are the most excited about trying (regardless of genre, difficulty, or what anyone else thinks), and no game should ever be avoided because of its trophy list.
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Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Despite the many stereotypes, gamers are all very unique from one another, with each having a variety of skill sets, likes/dislikes, and weaknesses. You, the person reading this article, know the kinds of games you are good at and enjoy, but are also probably aware of the genres that you might struggle with, or despise. This knowledge can be applied to trophy hunting by choosing to specialize in genres that you are most skilled at, while avoiding those that you… are less skilled at, as this will make you an efficient trophy hunting machine.
However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try games outside of your comfort zone on occasion, as sometimes you might find that you can “git gud” at a previously avoided genre through patience and practice (and former weaknesses become strengths). Rather, it’s more like, if you are a “scaredy-cat,” who can’t stand the sight of gore, you are probably not going to make it through the three required playthroughs against the Baker Family in Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, or if you are hopelessly terrible at driving games, spending 90+ hours smashing into walls as you try to platinum Gran Turismo 7 is not a wise use of your time.
Trophy Quality vs. Quantity
While playing online, you may have run across a few PlayStation gamers with hundreds, maybe even 1,000+ Platinum trophies, and extraordinarily high trophy levels. While some of those players are trophy hunting gods with undeniable skills and legendary lists, for others, when you dig deeper into their trophies, hundreds of the titles that fill their collection are stacks upon stacks of cheap, quasi-mobile games, which were created for the sole purpose of handing out platinum trophies that can be earned in minutes (or sometimes seconds), requiring little to no skill. While these “meme platinum” games can be fun in certain circumstances, it leads us to an understated truth about trophy hunting: The true mark of an impressive trophy hunter is not about their number of platinum trophies, but the types of games they’ve platinumed. Here is an example of this principle:
Trophy Hunter “A” has ten platinum trophies, while Trophy Hunter “B” has 100 platinum trophies. Trophy Hunter “B” clearly has the more impressive trophy list, right? WRONG! Trophy Hunter “A” has platinumed every FromSoftware Soulsborne game (Bloodborne, Dark Souls x2, Dark Souls II x2, Dark Souls III, Demon’s Souls x2, Elden Ring, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice). On the other hand, Trophy Hunter “B” built a collection entirely comprised of cheap, quick, stackable platinum trophies. In this hypothetical list, despite having 90 fewer platinum trophies, Trophy Hunter “A” has the more impressive trophy collection because they spent far more time to attain ten challenging platinum trophies than “B” did for 100 easy ones. In fact, the time it took Trophy Hunter “A” to platinum just Elden Ring was possibly longer than the duration for Trophy Hunter “B” to earn all 100 of their plats combined.
This example is not meant to disparage/gatekeep against anyone who wants to play games with easy platinum trophies or to place FromSoftware on a pedestal for trophy hunting, as you should follow this guide’s earlier advice and play the games you want to play, without caring what anyone else thinks. However, even through focusing on the games you love/enjoy, it can also be recognized and must be conceded that not all platinum trophies are created equal. Simply, your quantity of platinum trophies does not define your quality as a trophy hunter.
Set Trophy Hunting Goals
To get the most out of your trophy hunting and to give you direction in your gaming choices, it is beneficial to set trophy hunting goals for yourself. While you don’t have to take things too seriously, as gaming is entertainment after all, through setting goals you will be able to narrow your focus and improve your platinum-earning efficiency. These goals are entirely up to you and should reflect what you want to get out of the trophy hunting experience. For example, maybe you want to reach Trophy Level 999 as quickly as possible, this might lead you to focus on finding as many easy games that you can platinum as quickly as possible. Or if you desire to earn all of the platinum trophies in a specific videogame series, that would cause you to focus on that series, with its games taking precedence over others from your backlog. These goals can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just matters that you have something to strive towards, as what separates the elite trophy hunters from the rest of the pack is that they challenge themselves to improve.
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Use Online Resources
Unlike in the earliest years of achievements and trophies, today there are a vast array of trophy hunting resources online that can help you with guides, websites containing useful information, forums, and videos all available just a click away, which make trophy hunting a million times easier than going it alone. While the best resource is obviously Prima Games, we can’t hog all the glory, so some of the many useful, more trophy-oriented resources aside from this website include PSNProfiles, PlayStation Trophies, Powerpyx, YouTube, and even Reddit. Speaking of useful resources, another important aspect of becoming a great trophy hunter is…
Multiplayer Boosting
For those who don’t know, boosting is when you collaborate with a friend, or friends/group of gamers online to help each other earn multiplayer trophies that would be much harder to earn naturally. Is it cheating? Yes. Does it really matter? No. While you should definitely try your best to legitimately earn online trophies without resorting to boosting, with occasions of pending server closures, or instances of older games with smaller player bases being unplayable otherwise, there is sometimes no other choice than to find other trophy hunters online to help you earn missing multiplayer achievements. While there are a variety of useful boosting sources, PSNProfiles seems to be the best with its accessible user interface in the “Gaming Sessions” section of its website.
Make Cloud Saves
Another important element that separates the elite trophy hunters from the novices is their use of cloud saves. You can either manually or automatically back up your save data to PlayStation’s cloud (although it requires a subscription to PlayStation Plus), which can protect gamers from having to start games over when game saves become corrupted, trophies glitch, you need to replay a section multiple times, etc. The way to access the cloud saves are as follows:
Uploading Save Data to Cloud: Settings => Application Save Data Management => Save Data in System Storage => Upload to Online Storage
Downloading Cloud Saves to your Console: Settings => Application Save Data Management => Save Data in Online Storage => Download to System Storage
Have Fun!
Last, but not certainly not least, is to have fun as you progressively build up a collection of platinum trophies. Through its unique challenges, trophy hunting can force you play games more completely, in ways you may not have otherwise tried, and gives players a chance to truly get their money’s worth from every game they experience. However, if you find that trophy hunting is too overwhelming or takes the joy out of playing video games, then maybe it’s just not for you, and that’s OK. But for those who love trophy hunting, it is important to not become so obsessed to the point that you forget to smell the roses and take the time to sit back, relax, and just enjoy the variety of incredible gaming experiences available on PlayStation while earning virtual rewards in the process.
