2025 is finally wrapping up, and as we look back on the incredible games that were a part of our year, it is impossible to ignore the presence of achievements and trophies.
Love or hate them, they always spark a discussion or a curiosity in any conversation about new releases and anticipated titles – after all, it is always nice to have some badges and souvenirs from a great journey we lived on, or to try new challenges that you wouldn’t normally try.
Of course, some players get much more excited than others, but the debate always ends up about which game is actually worth chasing all the trophies for, whatever the reason!
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That is why I decided to do a proper recap, since this year gave us both extremes: the easy Platinums that felt like sweet, free candy, and the difficult ones that demanded blood, sweat, and some sanity checks.
So, buckle up for our official breakdown of the 5 easiest (and the 5 hardest) Platinum trophies of 2025, based on the sheer effort (or delightful lack thereof) required to hear that satisfying sound of a trophy popping up on the corner of your screen.
The ranking of the list was designed to capture the best experiences of the year (both good and bad) with trophies, so we weren’t looking for extremely quick Platinums and such. And the order goes from easiest to hardest among those selected!
10
Karma: The Dark World
Easy Platinum Trophy – 10 hours
I’m the kind of player who absolutely loves those short, yet deep horror experiences that fly under the radar of literally everyone – especially when they come with an easy and fun Platinum attached.
This is literally the case with Karma: The Dark World, a first-person indie psychological horror game set in 1984, that is basically everything a Twin Peaks fan has ever hoped for. It challenges you to investigate the deepest secrets of suspects’ minds in an experience that blends espionage and betrayal, and is one of the best horror titles this year.
Funny enough, its trophy list is not that scary, and that’s pretty awesome! It has no missable ones, and the hardest part is simply finding every collectible. Thanks to its extremely generous chapter replay system (once you complete the game for the first time), that task becomes very easy and smooth.
9
Split Fiction
Easy Platinum Trophy – 10 hours
I feel that it is pretty fitting that Split Fiction belongs here, as it perfectly follows its predecessor’s footsteps – It Takes Two – of being quite an easy and, most importantly, fun Platinum to earn.
Hazelight knows how to make cooperative joy extend all the way to the trophy list, since most of its trophies are related to the main story and the optional content, so they can practically be done without paying attention to the list at all.
[…] most of its trophies are related to the main story and the optional content […]
Simply enjoy the experience with another player and be curious about poking around the scenarios! Even the technically missable ones (which depend on specific chapter moments) are easily cleaned up thanks to the game’s quick and simple free roam.
Oh, and if you have a friend who already has the Platinum trophy, you can get it in between one and three hours (depending on whether you’re playing locally or online) by letting them host and finishing the last checkpoint of any main chapter (and a side one).
8
Once Upon a Katamari
Easy Platinum Trophy – 12 hours
The Platinum for Once Upon a Katamari is an extremely rare type, as the primordial skills you need to possess involve enjoying cleaning up objects and loving experiences that completely shut your brain off.
This is the first brand-new Katamari title on a home console since 2009, and it features 47 stages, 69 collectibles, and more than 3,500 unique items to be rolled up, alongside an online multiplayer mode.
On top of that, every trophy is about collecting all of the Crowns and Cousins, which is something that anyone who already loves the franchise can do with no guide at all. So, believe it or not, the whole experience ends up being quite therapeutic, hypnotic, and utterly simple.
I mean, we all need that experience where we can just forget about all the problems and roll up random objects in different places around the world (and even different time periods), right?
7
Ghost of Yōtei
Easy Platinum Trophy – 50 to 70 hours
I genuinely feel that PlayStation implemented a silent rule among its exclusive titles in the past few years, which demands an easy Platinum trophy to make players happy (and hey, I’m not complaining, quite the contrary!).
Jokes aside, Ghost of Yōtei has a list of trophies that reminded me a lot of Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War, since most of them are story-related and don’t require you to complete literally everything (just around 85% completion).
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That means, basically, you can enjoy the main story with no worries, and only after that, go after the trophies that are missing, which are mostly about going around the map and collecting some cool stuff.
There are no missable ones, and you can literally do everything on the easiest difficulty (“Casual”). By the end, I guess the only downside is that it will take you a few Martin Scorsese movies (in terms of length) to finally get the Platinum.
6
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Easy Platinum Trophy – 70 to 100 hours
For the last easy Platinum trophy in the ranking, I tried looking for one that is different from the previous ones, so I ended up with the one that made me have fun the most this year: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
Yes, it really takes up to 70 to 100 hours to be unlocked, but hear me out: it is just a trophy list that is time-consuming, but absolutely not difficult!
And this ended up being my favorite Platinum of 2025 simply because it has zero missable trophies, you can play at your own pace, and it only requires you to complete some (not all) of the best side quests you will play in any open-world title this past decade. The only requirement is to play on “Casual” difficulty for some Rank S trophies related to time.
Okay, I may sound a bit too excited, but this is the type of Platinum where you do 90% of it without even realizing, and then you chase the last few just for that satisfying pop on the corner of the screen. It is worth it!
5
The First Berserker: Khazan
Hard Platinum Trophy – 60 hours
I guess we all saw a hard Platinum coming with The First Berserker: Khazan when all of its promotional stuff said “heavily inspired by Dark Souls and Nioh”, so here we are!
What makes this one a tough road is that it requires you to finish the game twice, and with some quite specific requirements – that is, if you want to keep yourself sane, since you actually can do everything in a single playthrough, but at the cost of your mental health.
Basically, one of these trophies asks you to finish the game on Expert difficulty and not use the Spirit of Advocacy (which allows you to summon a Specter to aid you in a difficult battle), not a single time. And well, we all know how hard it can be to finish a brand-new game at its maximum difficulty right out of the gate and without one of its most powerful mechanics. Ouch.
4
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Hard Platinum Trophy – 50 to 75 hours
I think the only Assassin’s Creed I ever platinum’d was Assassin’s Creed II, when the trophy list demanded by Ubisoft didn’t require me to spend hours and hours exploring empty corners of the map in search of chests and completing repetitive missions – which has unfortunately become common in the franchise, and Shadows was no exception.
Some may argue that it is a simple and relatively easy trophy list, but you know that old motto about “it is all about the journey, not the destination”? That is exactly where this Platinum loses me, and trust me, I’m the type who tries to go for the Platinum every game.
And don’t get me wrong, I love losing some hours in an Assassin’s Creed and adored the time I spent with Yasuke and Naoe, but it is almost a mental exercise to do the cleanup after finishing the story because the journey is unnecessarily long.
[…] it is almost a mental exercise to do the cleanup after finishing the story […]
Plus, the frustrating fact that if the game loses online connection to Ubisoft servers right when you unlock a trophy (potentially causing all trophies to glitch and not pop up) can be extremely problematic, forcing you to do it all over again.
3
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hard Platinum Trophy – 40 to 80 hours
As was all expected, Hollow Knight: Silksong arrived in 2025 with an extremely challenging yet fun experience, featuring a much larger map than Hollow Knight and many bosses that still give nightmares to anyone who has finished the game.
And of course, the Platinum had to reflect that same idea! It not only demands 100% completion (more than once, by the way), but also has some speedrun trophies – two, to be precise, that require the player to finish the game in less than 5 hours (any %) and then in less than 30 hours (100% mandatory).
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the missable trophy that requires you to finish the game while in the middle of the Twisted Bud quest, meaning that you need to go all the way to the Cradle and defeat Grand Mother Silk while being cursed and without healing.
I have got to confess that the two speedruns thing kind of ruined my dream of getting the Platinum trophy and made me give up on it, since I didn’t want to risk ending up hating the game in the end.
2
Ninja Gaiden 4
Hard Platinum Trophy – 25 to 50 hours
And here is another game that should surprise no one by being among the hardest Platinum trophies of the year, since basically all Ninja Gaiden games are expected to be extremely brutal and challenging.
But I have to confess that I was surprised by Ninja Gaiden 4 because, yes, the game is truly difficult, you need to finish it on the maximum difficulty (which is only unlocked after beating it for the first time), and you need pretty much 100% completion.
However, the bosses aren’t a complete nightmare, there are no redundant chapter challenges, and the trials are well-balanced, so yes, it is hard, but a good type of hard – for those who like that kind of experience at least.
So I felt it was important to include the game in the ranking because it is different from the other contenders for this section, since it can be truly enjoyable despite being hard.
1
Forza Horizon 5
Hard Platinum Trophy – 50 hours
Forza Horizon 5 just hit the PlayStation 5, bringing its massive open-world racing action (and immediately, one of the toughest racing Platinums of the year) to the console.
If you have played it, you quickly learned that “The Eliminator” is literally a mode of nightmares – and the thing that prevents most players from getting that final trophy. Oh, and it is also the main culprit for the game’s presence on this ranking.
Just to give some context, this is a Battle Royale experience, where you start with a Level 1 car and need to find better vehicles to eliminate other players in head-to-head races. By winning, you get some upgrades, while the play zone keeps shrinking. At the end, the remaining players compete in one final race, and literally the last one standing (or driving, in this case), wins.
It may sound simple, especially when you read the trophy description that says that you only need to be in first place in this mode once, but it is the toughest challenge in the entire game. Factor in that Forza Horizon 5 still has online, missable, and difficulty trophies, and you have one of the hardest Platinums of 2025.
