Homestead Arcana's Removed Achievement Was Never Meant to Be in the Game, Says Dev

An Xbox Achievement removed from Homestead Arcana was never meant to be in the game according to developer Serenity Forge, leading to the perhaps unprecedented decision to delete it.

Speaking to IGN, Serenity Forge founder and executive producer Zhenghua Yang apologised for the Achievement's removal causing frustration and confusion.

"The achievement was the result of some miscommunication between our development team and Skybound's production team and it was never supposed to be in the game to begin with," he said.

"The achievement was the result of some miscommunication between our development team and Skybound's production team."

"We at Serenity Forge care very deeply about our Xbox fans as well as the amazing folks on the Xbox team and we're really sorry that this caused so much trouble and confusion."

The response follows a Eurogamer report that flagged the removed Achievement. Homestead Arcana players on Xbox noticed their Gamerscore jump up to 1,000 of 1,000 despite them not unlocking the final Achievement in the game.

Reporting the anomaly on Achievement tracking website TrueAchievements, fans soon realised that a deliberate move had been made to remove the You Can't Be Too Prepared Achievement altogether. This was a near-impossible unlock for players as it required the crafting of hundreds of items, with some reporting a glitch that stopped it being achieved altogether.

It was unclear at the time who called for the Achievement to be ruled, if it was the developer or Microsoft, but it appears to be the former based on Yang's comments to IGN.

Removing Achievements is practically unheard of otherwise, and unless Microsoft has done so for a game that's gone unnoticed, hasn't happened before Homestead Arcana.

Announced at the ID@Xbox Showcase last September, Homestead Arcana promised to blend an exploration-based farming sim with a magic-based RPG, letting players plough fields and cast spells side by side.

Luis Joshua Gutierrez is a freelance writer who loves games. You can reach him at @ImLuisGutierrez on Twitter.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Editor's Note: This article previously claimed Microsoft removed the Achievement while that information was not clear. IGN regrets the error and has updated the article with a statement from the developer.