Feature: Going Platinum: Return of the Obra Dinn on PS4, One of the Best Games with One of the Worst Trophies

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Platinum Trophy #17: Return of the Obra Dinn

Date Earned: 2nd November 2019

Dopamine Index:

Okay, so I’ve been showing off all my Platinum Trophies lately, but honestly? They’re mostly just for bragging rights. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – chasing those Platinums is fun, but they don’t really do anything.

I mention this because I’m about to nitpick a single Trophy, which feels a bit ridiculous considering how much I love the game – I really think it’s a modern classic.

It’s funny, I actually wrote about this before! I felt so strongly about one little annoyance – not with the game itself, but with the list of Trophies you could earn – that I just had to share my thoughts.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a truly outstanding game. It’s nearly perfect, and while it’s already fantastic, adding some modern accessibility options would make it even better considering how gaming has evolved since its launch.

If you haven’t tried it yet, I really recommend giving it a shot, even though the premise sounds a little strange. You’re an insurance investigator tasked with figuring out what happened to everyone on the Obra Dinn, a ship that vanished at sea and has mysteriously returned.

You’ll investigate the ship, using a special pocket watch to travel back in time to learn who everyone was and how they died. As you figure out each person’s story, you’ll write it down in your journal. Once you’ve solved three of these mysteries, the journal will be completed.

The game challenges you to uncover the truth using only the clues you find, testing your ability to observe, think logically, and make deductions. Return of the Obra Dinn is unique in how it makes you feel genuinely clever, and it’s incredibly rewarding to piece everything together through your own detective work and gradually complete the game’s journal.

The brilliant puzzle gameplay in Return of the Obra Dinn is also how the game tells a moving, though sad, story about the ship and its crew.

Okay, so the game shows you little scenes – short conversations and frozen pictures of characters… well, meeting their end. But it’s not just about how they died. As you piece together what happened to everyone on board, you start to understand who they were, how they knew each other, and what choices led to everything going so wrong. It’s like solving a puzzle about their lives, not just their deaths.

It’s superb.

Now, then, that Trophy.

This trophy is secret, meaning you won’t get clear instructions on how to earn it. Many secret trophies can be unlocked by simply playing the game, or you might figure out what’s needed just by reading the trophy’s name.

The ‘Captain Did It’ trophy in Return of the Obra Dinn is tricky because you’d likely need to look up how to get it – it’s not something you’d discover through normal gameplay.

To unlock the platinum trophy, you have to complete the game and consistently blame the ship’s captain for every time your character dies.

The concept is already quite amusing, but fully unlocking the achievement requires watching every short scene and finding all 60 characters – a task that will take several hours.

The game basically needs to be played from start to finish, but with a twist: instead of documenting discoveries in a journal, you’re led to blame everything on the ship’s captain. This is a solution players wouldn’t naturally come up with on their own; the game needs to guide them towards it.

Like I mentioned before, trophies aren’t a big deal and usually aren’t worth worrying about. But this one bothers me because the game is so meaningful, and this feels like it rewards playing in a way that goes against its core, aggressive style.

Even though I had problems getting this particular trophy – I even wrote an article about it years ago – I did ultimately unlock it and now have the platinum achievement.

I’m really happy to own this game, and it’s inspired me to replay it.

Cheers, Return of the Obra Dinn.

Do you have the platinum Trophy for Return of the Obra Dinn? Tell us in the comments section below.

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2026-03-21 23:37