Final Fantasy XI to get Xbox 360 Achievements

Presumably coming in next version update

July 21, 2006

It seems that Square Enix's next update of its online RPG, Final Fantasy XI will introduce achievements into the Xbox 360 version of the game.

Xbox 360 achievements are milestones earned by gamers as they play through games on their Xbox 360 console. These achievements grant 'Gamerscore' to the player, which then shows up on their profile. Despite some fraud, Gamerscore is often a status symbol among players on Xbox Live.

Until now, Final Fantasy XI was the only Xbox 360 game that did not have any achievements or earnable gamerscore. The developer's guidelines for the system insist that all games should have at least five achievements and can give up to 1000 Gamerscore points.

Xbox.com now shows a list of 32 achievements for Final Fantasy XI. All are listed as "Secret Achievements" (as some games do to avoid spoilers), and are so far unknown. The Gamerscore points do total 1000, and most achievements earn 30-40 points each.

The achievements aren't active in the game, yet, which suggests that they may only appear after the upcoming version update, which will also introduce changes to Besieged as well as chocobo breeding.

Of course, for the Xbox players out there who are having love affairs with their Gamerscore, Final Fantasy XI is not a means for quick points. Some of the achievements undoubtedly can be earned at end-game, meaning that you've levelled your character to the maximum level (75), which can take months to complete.