Platinum #78 - Dead Island

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

Just for the sake of addressing the disclaimer immediately, this is a reduced Platinum Difficulty Rating purely based on the strategic use of the Bloodbath Arena DLC package when progressing towards trophies in this main list, which makes the Platinum trophy significantly easier for reasons which will be addressed in detail below.

This is a list that once upon a time was breaching into the realms of 7/10 in terms of difficulty, mostly for a very time consuming venture with some very scrappy trophies thrown in for good measure.

For the most part, that's actually still true to word, but this list can be made a much easier task to conquer courtesy of the Bloodbath arena DLC, which helps with the progress towards a handful of the longer and/or more challenging trophies in this list.

Despite being an open-world, sandbox game, there is still a story mode, though this doesn't have as many progression related trophies tied to it as you may expect from any game with a story driven narrative. You'll get trophies for completing each of the 4 acts, but there's nothing difficulty related here and the game doesn't require you to complete the story any more than once, though that is dependent on your how you approach your quest to level 50.

The trophy list also does it's best to promote the co-operative element of the game, throwing in an array of trophies for completing quests within a co-op party and progressing the game with different numbers of people. There's also a heavy emphasis on kill accumulation trophies with differing types of weapons and vehicles, and the array of customisation options from weapons and equipment. There's a really big assortment of naturally progressive and miscellaneous trophies in this list, which will come through simply working towards the more notable trophies in the game.

In terms of where the challenge of this list comes from, the "Rootin' Tootin' Lootin'" trophy, awarded for Looting 5 Exceptional Weapons, is the solitary Gold trophy in this list, and entirely based on luck under normal circumstances. Exceptional weapons are graded in orange, and pop up in crates throughout the game, and there's no rhyme or reason as to when or where you'll find them. After an entire first play-through, I only had 2 exceptional weapons, and it seemed like the only way to get the rest was to carry on playing the game. This didn't feel like an unnecessary slog at the time because I still had some way to progressing towards level 50 and the "School of hard knocks" trophy, which you'll have to go deep into a second play-through to achieve, but the entire luck based nature of this trophy gives no guarantee you'll loot 5 exceptional weapons before you hit level 50, which could place you into the territory of fruitless grinding. Trading exceptional weapons with other players doesn't count, and there doesn't seem to be any solid methods of increasing your chances of looting exceptional weapons, so you're at the mercy of the luck-based trophy Gods.

However, there is a savior, and it comes in the form of the Bloodbath Arena DLC. During arenas, you'll get a notification at some point that a zombie within the current wave is carrying an exceptional weapon, and once killed, you can pick it up and it'll count towards your total of 5, making this trophy much easier. The point at which the notification appears seems to be random, but this method was how I cleaned up the remaining 3 exceptional weapons I needed after the desperation of endlessly opening loot crates with no progression whatsoever. It's strange that the game counts weapon drops from zombies as "looting", but it works and that's all that matters. A huge time-saver, and a foolproof method.

On similar grounds, the "School of hard knocks" trophy, awarded for Reaching level 50, is the highest level based trophy, with just over 3,000,000 experience points required to hit this milestone, and under normal circumstances, can be typically reached within just under 2 full play-throughs of the game. You shouldn't need to clean up much after your first run-through, so the second just comes to whatever you missed and accumulating experience, but this is a long journey and should you choose to follow this method, it's a long grind right to the end.

However, as before, there is a savior, and it's the exact same savior as previously mentioned. The Bloodbath Arena DLC is a haven for farming experience points. If you choose either of the two hardest arenas, you'll be able to rack up the experience much quicker than if you were to just continue playing through the game again. Every wave in the arena yields a challenge, which in turn yields experience, and the countless zombies for you to mow down generates experience points aplenty. Even though you'll still feel the struggle towards the higher end of the 40's, it's the most effective and quickest way to reach level 50, and it beats grinding through the entire game again completing the exact same quests as before in an attempt you level up your character.

Not only will you get the experience points from killing a ton of zombies in a manic, horde-esque environment, you'll also rack up the challenge experience on top from the various challenges on offer during each wave, and perhaps a few other miscellaneous trophies along the way. It all contributes towards hitting level 50, and this method significantly reduces the difficulty further to the above.

For some trophies though, there is no such workaround, including the "Right 4 Life" trophy, awarded for completing act 1 with 4 different characters. At 2-3 hours to complete act 1 for each character, that adds around 10-12 extra hours for something that is just no more than just a rinse and repeat job. A little bit tedious, and something to definitely note as it adds a significant amount onto the overall completion time.

The "There and back again" trophy, awarded for Exploring the entire island, is missable, because some of the 72 locations within the game cannot be revisited after certain points in the game, meaning if you never explored them before you move onto the next area, you'll have to carry over your game into a new play-through and reach the point where you first encounter the location. Any location you've previously seen carries over though, so you won't need to re-do everything, but a fair few of them can be easily missed, especially if you don't stray from the main story path, so it's important to make sure you keep track of them all to ensure you don't move onto a new area too quickly without ensuring you've unlocked every location beforehand.

It can be also difficult to know which locations you haven't seen yet, given the fact the only indication the game will give you is by telling you how many of the 72 locations you've unlocked, so if you're not keeping score, it'll be up to you to work out which ones you've missed, which can be a nightmare to dissect if you have to go through the game again because you won't know how far forward you have to play before you hit the areas you've missed, and there's still always a chance you may miss them again, which is a bit messy, so this is definitely one to watch out for. 

The "Nearly there" trophy, awarded for Finding 120 collectibles, is mentioned for similar reasons to the above. This is another missable trophy, and the game will have to be played from scratch on a new play-through to collect anything you may have missed previously. Thankfully, this number is not the full compliment of collectibles in the game, and you have a small margin of error, which makes it easier than hunting down every location because you won't to scour the whole map in search for all of the postcards, recordings and manuals. It's still alot to do though.

All in all, this a list that can made significantly easier if you choose to take advantage of the Bloodbath Arena DLC, which is a genuine difference maker. Under normal circumstances, this is a long game with a hefty leveling grind, along with the uncertainty of looting exceptional weapons which can potentially have you playing way beyond necessity. Without the option of the Bloodbath Arena DLC, I would be marking this game somewhere in the region of 7/10, but after being able to use this to drastically support progression to the two most difficult trophies in the list, it brings it down a few notches to a more average rating.

Most of the list is simply a matter of accumulating kills in various ways and ensuring you're playing the game in co-operative mode as often as possible in order to unlock the handful of co-op trophies on offer. Natural progression towards completing the game once and playing on towards level 50 will see you unlock most of the miscellaneous trophies, but the missable trophies keep you suitably on your toes, and despite the DLC related shortcuts that make the tougher trophies much more achievable, you're still looking at around a 60-70 hour Platinum with everything taken into account, which is a hefty time commitment.

That's all it really boils down to though. The game doesn't present an actual challenge in terms of difficulty, and you're never really penalised upon death, so there's never any pressure when going through the game because you'll always respawn where you last died with nothing but a financial penalty which never adversely affects your characters progression or abilities. It's still a good slog which will test your staying power, but if you can overcome that, then you've won most of the battle. The rest of it can be won by downloading the Bloodbath Arena DLC.

Notable Trophies -

Rootin' Tootin' Lootin' - Loot 5 Exceptional Weapons.
School of hard knocks - Reach level 50.
Right 4 Life - Complete act 1 with 4 different characters.
There and back again - Explore the entire island.
Nearly there - Find 120 collectibles.

Hardest Trophy - 

School of hard knocks
Reach level 50

DLC #105 - Dead Island - Bloodbath Arena

The Bloodbath Arena DLC adds a survival arena mode to Dead Island, with 4 arenas of varying difficulty, requiring the player to survive wave after wave of zombies in increasing volumes. A very simple concept at it's core, and one which has been used many times in various games before.

The package adds 10 new trophies, all catered towards progression within the arenas under differing circumstances, and most of the list will require you to reach a certain amount of waves under specific conditions, most of which aren't generally that challenging.

Surviving a certain number of waves using custom weapons, only fists, analog fighting controls and on each of the 4 arenas all yield trophies upon completion, with a couple of throwaways on the side. Where left unstated, these can be achieved on any of the 4 arenas, so you can choose Arena A (Easy), if your only intention is to unlock the trophies in the most efficient way possible, though tougher arenas yield better rewards in terms of experience points and item drops, which can be useful if you're also still chasing trophies from the main game's list.

As a small side note, you actually may find this game mode challenging if your character hasn't been substantially leveled and/or holds some strong equipment. It feels like the game mode was designed to be tackled later into the game, and doesn't favour low leveled characters. It also doesn't favour solo or smaller parties, which may make it slightly tougher if you're trying to go for these trophies alone, which you can do for most of them, though you will need to play in co-op as a minimum requirement for some of the trophies of this list. As for the more direct challenges;

Gladiator School - Survive 15 consecutive waves with each of the 4 characters.
Morituri te salutant - Survive 30 consecutive waves with at least one co-op player.

The "Gladiator School" trophy, requires the player to survive at least 15 waves in any arena with each each of the 4 main characters. The difficulty around this trophy has already been touched upon above, and this is a tough one to achieve unless your character is a high enough level to get through 15 waves of enemies. In reality, you won't have leveled all 4 characters substantially enough to tackle this without taking a few shortcuts. The main game's list only requires you to achieve level 50 with 1 character, and the only other way you'll use the other 3 is for the "Right 4 Life" trophy, which only requires you to reach Act 2 with every character, so chances are, purely from a trophy hunters perspective, you'll have to complete this trophy using 3 weaker characters.

So what are the tactics out there which can help you achieve this trophy in the easiest possible way? Firstly, you can have a team of stronger players carry you through to wave 15 if you don't want to invest the time playing through the game and strengthening your characters beyond Act 2. It's obviously in the best interest of the game to attempt to contribute where you can, but your effectiveness will be limited, especially as the size and strength of the hordes grow through the rounds. Secondly, you could get your hands on a modded gun, of which there are plenty in the game at this stage of it's life cycle. It may be that some of the people you group up with already have modded guns, which makes light work of the zombies, but they may also drop them for you to use, so it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to take advantage, primarily because it allows you to take an arena on in solo mode.

You could, of course, just level each of the 4 characters up to around 30+ and make this manageable, but this takes a long time, and both of the above methods work just as well when it comes to the end goal of achieving the trophy, so just save the time and effort, unless you actually enjoy the game enough to significantly level 4 different characters.

The "Mortituri te salutant" trophy, is here for similar reasons, though is somewhat easier because you can use your primary character you reached level 50 with in the main game for this one. The above 2 methods will also work in the same way, but you most likely won't need to resort to these in order to achieve this trophy because your main character should be strong enough, with a decent selection of weapons to get you through 30 waves. It takes a while to get through 30 waves (about 45 minutes), so you'll need maximum concentration. Your partner will also need to be similarly high leveled, which you should make sure is the case straight away. You don't want to be in a position where you're carrying your partner, so make sure they're a high enough level and their equipment is strong enough for a good contribution.

Every trophy other than the 2 mentioned above can be comfortably achieved in solo, providing you just use your strongest character and go to work. The others will require assistance, but all outlined methods work well when trying to achieve these trophies, and actually require minimal work. It can be tough to find players at the stage of the game's life cycle, and you will need a willing runner to reach wave 30, so there a few obstacles to overcome along the way.

NOTE : This DLC is an excellent outlet for many of the trophies contained with the main list of the game. It is especially useful for leveling up your character, obtaining epic loot and also unlocking a series of miscellaneous trophies within the main game's list. It is certainly worth taking advantage of when you consider what you may need to still achieve from the main game. This will be mentioned in more detail during the write up of the main list.

DLC #104 - Battlefield 4 - Naval Strike

The Naval Strike expansion pack is 1 of 5 add-ons to Battlefield 4, adding 4 new maps and a host of weapons, gadgets, vehicles and equipment to the Multiplayer aspect of Battlefield.

As is a common theme with all of these DLC packs, the trophies are spread across a variety of the new features added for each expansion, encouraging the player to indulge within as many new aspects as possible.

In relation to all 5 pieces of DLC, Naval Strike is actually one of the easier packs to complete, and contains 5 new trophies awarded for executing in-game tasks.

Completing a game of the newly added Carrier Assault game mode yields a trophy, as does obtaining a kill in the new ACV, but the slightly tougher elements of this package come from a couple of other trophies included within;

Fly Swatter - Kill an enemy with the AA Mine
No Parley - Get a kill with the old cannon

The "Fly Swatter" trophy, awarded for killing an enemy with the AA Mine, is the hardest trophy in the set, and actually one of the most difficult trophies across all 5 Battlefield 4 expansions packs. For starters, the AA Mine isn't readily available, and the "Death from Below" assignment is a pre-requisite to unlocking this piece of equipment. The assignment requires you to reach level 10, and then to obtain 3 PDW ribbons and destroy 5 air attack vehicles with rocket launchers.

This isn't terribly difficult, but creates extra work, and once this is done, the real fun starts. The AA Mine has a few limitations to take note of when going for this trophy. The most notable limitation is the fact that, unlike most anti-air weapons, it won't take a vehicle down unless it's already been significantly damaged, due to the fact the AA Mine only deals around 30 hit points worth of damage. Another limitation is the fact that it only has enough power to use 1 projectile, meaning your approach to this has to be extremely tactical.

The best thing to do is equip a primary rocket launcher, such as the Stinger or the Igla, and once an aircraft has been hit, you can quickly deploy the AA Mine in hope enough damage has already been done to achieve the killing blow. This will more than likely contain much trial and error, and was the primary approach I took when attempting to achieve this trophy. The irony of the situation is, I actually ended up just getting lucky when I spotted a helicopter on it's way down, and just deployed the AA Mine, which hit the falling chopper and killed the pilot, triggering the trophy, so it might just end up being a case of situational fortune.

The "No Parley" trophy, awarded for getting a kill with the old cannon, can also see you succumb to a touch of trial and error. The old cannon is an emplacement weapon (meaning it's fixed to a certain location as part of the map) and only exists on the Operation Mortar map. The cannon is in 4 locations around a raised fort at the highest point of the map, but 3 of these locations face outwards towards water, making them incredibly unlikely situations to be able to kill an enemy. The other location looks downhill, giving the greater chance of killing enemies on foot.

The biggest flaw of the old cannon is the extreme drop-off when firing a shot, making long-distance engagements difficult to judge when aiming. It's also got a fixed axis of movement within a certain line of fire and also has an extremely slow rate of fire, making it a tough weapon to use. The best tactic is to wait for enemies to vault over the embankment directly in front of the cannon and just firing. It's a guaranteed kill, but you may have to be prepared to wait and be patient. You can continuously try your luck from distance in the meantime, but you run the risk of reloading your shot when there's a possibility somebody could appear in front of you and you miss your chance.

Aside from the trickier trophies in this set, it's still one of the easier pieces of DLC within the game, though that is mainly down to the fact there isn't a trophy awarded for completing all assignments like there is for 3 of the other DLC packs. The majority of your efforts will go into the aforementioned trophies, and they're still a good challenge in their own right, but everything else is fairly easy.