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 -
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| 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. |
School of hard knocks
Reach level 50
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