Achievements & RetroAchievements

The achievement / completion tracking layer, focused especially on RetroAchievements which has become the killer feature on top of emulators in 2024-26. For broader cross-platform game tracking see Game tracking & completion. For multi-system emulators that integrate RetroAchievements see Multi-system emulators; for the per-console emulators see Nintendo / Sony / Misc / arcade.

RetroAchievements (the headline)

• ★ ★ RetroAchievements (RA) — free; web + emulator integrations. A community-built achievement system layered on top of retro emulators. Hundreds of supported games per system, custom achievements designed by community contributors, leaderboards, hardcore mode (no save states / cheats). Integrates natively with RetroArch, Dolphin, PCSX2, DuckStation, RPCS3, PPSSPP, Mesen, mGBA, melonDS, Vita3K, Flycast and more. The single best reason to use modern emulators in 2026.
• RAIntegration — free OSS; the toolkit for designing achievements (mostly relevant if you want to author achievements).
• DolphinBar / Achievement set guidelines — community curation standards.

Steam achievements

• Steam Hunters — free; community Steam achievement tracker with rarity-weighted points.
• Astats — free; Steam-completion-percentage tracker with histories.
• completionist.me — free; Steam progress tracker.
• Steam Achievement Manager (SAM) — free OSS Win; toggles Steam achievements locally. Honest flag: many treat as cheating; doesn't grant anything else; unintended unlocks are easy.
• Augmented Steam — see SteamDB & Steam stats; inline achievement rarity in the Steam UI.

Xbox / Game Pass

• ★ TrueAchievements — free + paid; web. Xbox + Game Pass + Microsoft Store completion tracking with rarity-weighted "TrueAchievement" points. The serious-Xbox-completionist site.

PlayStation

• ★ TrueTrophies — free + paid; web. Sister site to TrueAchievements; PlayStation trophy hunting.
• PSNProfiles — free; the PSN community trophy hub. Per-trophy guides, leaderboards.

Cross-platform aggregators

• ★ Exophase — free; web. Aggregates Steam + PSN + Xbox + RetroAchievements + GOG + Epic into one profile. Most enthusiasts pick this for cross-platform achievement tracking.
• TrueAchievements profile imports (paid) — TA can pull non-Xbox profiles for paid users.

Honest notes

• RetroAchievements hardcore mode disables save-states; the only "real" achievements at the community level. Many community guides assume hardcore.
• Per-platform trophy / achievement systems are not interoperable; that's why aggregators (Exophase) exist.
• Some emulators (Yuzu / Ryujinx forks for Switch, xenia for X360) don't yet integrate RetroAchievements; the supported list trends toward older / completed-emulator systems.

Pick this if…

• Adding meaningful goals to retro emulation: RetroAchievements via RetroArch / Dolphin / etc.
• Tracking everything in one place: Exophase.
• Xbox / Game Pass deep: TrueAchievements.
• PlayStation deep: PSNProfiles + TrueTrophies.
• Steam-only: Steam Hunters or Astats.