CE Wiki

Objectives ​

Objectives usually consist in one or several challenges grouped together under a game. Completing its requirements will award you the objective if you both can prove it and own the game.

We follow the DIRE, which stands for "Developer Intended, Recognized, or Encouraged" as an overarching criteria for a point-valued objective.

Primary Objectives (POs) ​

Also known as POs.

Challenges presented by the developer of a game in an unambiguous manner. Typically in forms associated with primary gameplay progression.

Examples include:

  • Steam achievements, Playstation Trophies, XBOX Achievements. Any achievement that was published by the developer of the game.
  • Completing difficulties and modes (that terminate).
  • Assigned unambiguous thresholds of competency (grades, medals, ranks, badges). May be paired with difficulties and modes. For example, two modes, - Campaign and Boss Rush, both have Normal and Hard difficulties, the player is awarded a grade based on performance from D-A, A ranks would be PO in both modes on Hard. These do not need to be permanent.
  • Readily accessed physical content that is not deeply hidden or obscure. Bonus levels.
  • Tracked collectables (the collectables must be permanent, a mode that terminates itself under criteria other than intentional manual deletion are exempt).
  • Completing a 1cc (1 credit clear) if doing so is displayed somewhere permanently as having been completed. In some cases it may be ambiguous enough to be SO, even with permanent recognition.

Difficulty order ​

Objectives in games tend to be ordered top-to-bottom, with the intended progression meant to be starting from the bottom and climbing up. In some rare cases, objectives may be grouped according to modes, but the objectives inside these modes will be sorted as previously described.

Secondary Objectives (SOs) ​

PLEASE NOTE

Secondary objectives were officially introduced in April 2026. The scope of 'what is an SO' will continue to develop as additional examples are brought to the team.

The list of examples below is not expected to be exhaustive, and the examples may be further expanded upon or restricted as additional edge cases are worked through.

Anything that can be argued to fall within DIRE that is not immediately obvious or may be ambiguous to most players, or unambiguous but highly indirect forms of gameplay progression.

Examples include:

  • Levels behaving differently based on a specific and unique play pattern.
  • Where a modifier is only selectable before a run starts, and cannot be changed or turned off mid-run, and the modifier is intended or presented to the player as a means of making the run more challenging, then beating the game with just that modifier (and no other modifiers).
    • How the modifier is presented in-game factors into the objective's viability: for instance, if the modifier is presented right before the start of each level/run, instead of being found several layers deep into a settings menu, there is a clearer intent to beat levels with the modifier.
    • Combinations of modifiers are not grounds for inclusion as an SO, absent other indication of developer intent or encouragement.
  • Placement on a leaderboard found in game.
  • Ambiguous rewards based on performance (impermanent minor changes in cutscenes).
  • Challenges found on or presented by a developer through the platform in which the game was published on. Challenges seen in officially published game manuals, or developer made content through the steam workshop for example.
  • Developer curated community made content within a game (varying degrees of curation may be on a case by case basis); challenges within that content are exempt unless also explicitly encouraged by the developers (for example, beating curated maps from Track Central in Trials, but not getting diamond medals on them).
  • Impermanent collectables.
  • Easter eggs (within reason).
  • Developer expressed encouragement to attempt something found consistently and unambiguously within the game (i.e. not a developer post on Twitter, text in a Steam update, etc).
  • Multiple playable characters for existing PO content (does not pair with thresholds of competency unless uniquely tracked / balanced for it)
  • Solo mode completions in games built for multiplayer where singleplayer is a selectable option (under consideration)
  • 1CC/one-credit-clear in games where credit use would result in score being voided or a game over is present (may be paired with difficulty, may not be paired with multiple characters/weapon types/ships/etc unless tracked).
  • Rhythm ranks/grades which require timing/accuracy higher than that of an FC (subject to consideration / further refinement).
  • Weapon/item unlocks that are not explicitly tracked collectables.
  • Bonuses obtained through performance that are not directly associated with grades/ranks. (1-ups, extra lives, etc. if they would be hard enough.)
  • Beating pre-loaded high scores / times that are set by the dev and visible in a context where beating them is encouraged.
  • Completing a 1cc if failing would result in some permanent penalty, such as score being reset or locking you out of an alternate route, OR there is some on-screen indication that the game is over or that you have failed somehow, OR the 1cc is displayed temporarily upon completion.

Extra caveats ​

  • If a difficulty would be selected or triggered in a way that differs too much from standard difficulties found within the same game, then completing those should by default be considered SO. For example, if you initiate "Normal" and "Hard" difficulty by selecting them at the start of a game, but can only attempt "Cataclysmic" difficulty by entering a hidden menu, a beta branch, a menu for alternative/untested/unintended modes, etc. then doing anything with respect to "Cataclysmic" difficulty in this example would be considered SO. Any challenges normally paired with difficulties that are defined as PO (earning ranks, collectibles, boss rush etc.) for SO based difficulties are themselves also fair game for SO.

Community Objectives (COs) ​

COs are objectives that would be recognized on the site if they hypothetically fell within the DIRE framework, and are not otherwise PO or SO. You can imagine this as the community recognizing a challenge rather than the developer. Otherwise, these still follow some of the same rules as other objective types.

Examples:

  • ✅ Community recognized milestones, such as a sub-30 minute Celeste speedrun, or 1100 in devil daggers.

  • ✅ Reaching the end, or otherwise maxing out something that is not developer recognized and is not an SO (Kill screen in arcade games, 150/100 purple coins in Mario Galaxy, etc.).

  • ✅ Stand-out modded content that is expansive enough to be worth a badge (such as Strawberry Jam in Celeste, or the pale court mod in Hollow Knight).

  • ✅ Self-imposed challenges, such as obtaining all collectibles during a YOLO.

  • ✅ Mode/Modifier combinations that don't fall under DIRE or are not otherwise PO/SO (Hades 64 Heat).

  • ✅ Objectives that do fall under DIRE, but are not PO/SO for reasons such as redundancy, or low overall difficulty (such as Balatro's completionist achievements - Although these meet the 5 point threshold and are unique challenges, the amount of effort and grind required for such a low amount of points simply isn't worth having these be PO required for completion).

  • ✅ Beating a static developer time that is not recognized in-game or a well known speedrun time (such as the Splodey event record).

  • ✅ Obtaining all RetroAchievements, as these are typically include content that is not recognized by the original developers.

  • ✅ Milestones for harder objectives (such as doing all zones separately as practice for a tougher YOLO objective, where doing the individual zones/checkpoints deathless is not developer recognized)

  • 🚫 PVP or other Dynamic Challenges, as even though these can fall under DIRE, the experience will differ for every player and doesn't provide a consistent challenge. (Subject to consideration)

  • 🚫 Challenges that do not meet the 5 point threshold for difficulty on the site

  • 🚫 Excessive grind that doesn't offer anything new (Such as beating a game 50 times where it's the same experience/challenge every time.)

  • 🚫 Exceedingly arbitrary goals, at the discretion of the CO team

Note that there may be exceptions to these rules at the discretion of the CO and game additions teams, and these guidelines do not necessarily cover every possible CO that could be added to the site. Especially in regards to grind, repetition, and whether these objectives reach the 5 point threshold, there may be certain objectives that "toe the line", but are deemed acceptable for a number of reasons at the discretion of the CO team.

Difficulty thresholds

Whilst objectives falling under the CO designation do not need to adhere to the DIRE framework, they still need to meet a notional '5 point' level of difficulty to be included as an objective.

FAQ ​

"What does uncleared mean? What are uncleared objectives?" ​

You may find some games with primary or secondary objectives listed with a value of 0 points.

These are objectives that we know exist for a game, but they haven't yet:

  • been cleared by anyone within the CE community (even if it may have been cleared by someone outside of CE), and as such have not been valued; or
  • been assigned a value. This could be driven by one of a number of factors, such as being a recent completion, being unable to make a solid assessment of points, or awaiting discussion/other clears.

"What counts as a completion?" ​

Only completing all Primary Objectives in a game is enough for a completion. This also requires all 0-point primary objectives (whether uncleared or unvalued) if they exist.

If you complete all Secondary Objectives, you will be awarded their points and an "overcompletion" in the game leaderboard, but it doesn't show up anywhere else other than your game list.

Completing all Community Objectives in a game does nothing.

"There's this cheevo in a RetroAchievement game..." ​

RetroAchievement sets may be created by "set developers" but they're still fundamentally normal users compared to the actual game. Even if the set has personalized challenges, they don't count as primary or secondary objectives due to the simple fact that they were made by "the community". It would go fundamentally against what we're trying to avoid.

If a RA achievement happens to align with our DIRE criteria and has no abstract/extra requirements, then it's welcomed! In fact, due to RA sets having cheat protection, they're often a very solid proof method.

"There has been a proof change in an achievement-based objective but I still own it?" ​

Usually this happens because we have "grandfathered" you in as a token of good gesture, so that you don't have to replay the game if it's not mandatory. Most likely, the objective or the game has not changed, but something has been found that requires the submission of proof for any future clearers.

There have been rare cases, usually entire game overhauls, where we won't grandfather previous clearers of objectives, so it's not a given.

"I still don't understand what SOs are! Why does it have to be so complicated?" ​

This change has no negative aspects! If anything, it's a net positive.

Back when we had either POs or COs, there were several hypothetical situations we met through the road that would thread a fine line between what could be one or the other. The result was potentially a (more) arbitrary choice. Including SOs on the list means that not only these obtuse situations (colloquially called "tomatoes" 🍅) can be solved without much issue, but that we can actually have a much more solid definition for what we consider the main focus of a game -that is, the POs-.

Look at it in another way: nothing has been demoted from what would have been a PO originally to a CO. If anything, there are a few stuff that originally were COs that can now be included as SOs.