Overview
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
-Offline: 0
-Online: 50 (1000)
-Approximate amount of time for 1000: 150-200+ hours
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
-Number of missable achievements: 0
-Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No cheat codes
-Does difficulty affect achievements?: No, there is no difficulty setting
-Glitchy achievements: The co-op map achievements can sometimes not unlock after completion of the maps
-Unobtainable achievements: None
-Extra equipment needed?: No, but there are Kinect voice commands
-Is there DLC? Yes

• Castithan Charge Pack
  • Difficulty: 4/10
  • Time to 200: 4-9 Hours
  • Unobtainable: None

• Arkbreaker DLC
  • Difficulty: 8/10
  • Time to 200: 2-100+ Hours (depends on luck & clan).
  • Unobtainable: None
• 7th Legion DLC
  • Difficulty: 2/10
  • Time to 75: 25 days.
  • Glitchy Achievements: "Lucky-Kitty"
• Gunslinger Trials DLC
  • Difficulty: 5/10
  • Time to 75: 30+ Hours
  • Unobtainable: None
• Arktech Revolution DLC
  • Difficulty: 5/10
  • Time to 75: 30 Days
  • Unobtainable: None

Introduction:
"United. Divided. Defiant. Join the fight!" Welcome to world Defiance, ark hunter. Defiance is a buy-to-play online open-world shooter (third person, MMO). In this world, you'll be killing Hellbugs, Raiders, Mutants, 99ers, and Dark Matter forces as you loot arkfalls, build up your EGO, and search for an alien relic. During your time in Defiance, you'll be working towards killing many enemies (Player vs. Environment, PvE), completing goals and contracts, playing some Player vs. Player (PvP), completing challenges, time trials, side missions, and leveling up in addition to a main storyline. There isn't much to prepare for. Just jump right in and get started on whatever you want. That is the nice thing about MMOs.


Walkthrough
Story
The story is not that time consuming and is five acts. The completion of the tutorial and each act unlocks an achievement. Just look for the exclamation point in a box on your world map for the next storyline mission. Once you have completed the main storyline, you should have unlocked Holy Shtako!, Skruggin' Ark Core, Wrong Hands, That Hagisi Lied, Everyone Will Die, and Who... Are You?.

PvP
There are competitive PvP and Shadow War PvP achievements to unlock. None of them are overly difficult to earn, some are just more time consuming than others (such as the headshots). During your time in Shadow War PvP, you will want to work on 50 capture points for Chasing Shadows, 50 headshots for Brain Surgeon, and 25 roadkills for Vehicular Manslaughter. In competitive PvP, you will want to win 10 times on each map to unlock Freight Magnate, Stargazer, and Wharfie. Matches in Shadow War and PvP will contribute to 100 human player kills (Upper Echelon). Just focus on one at a time so you aren't trying to do headshots while running people while trying to capture points.

Arkfalls
A big part of this game is the Arkfalls. There are a few achievements related to completing Arkfalls. You'll be jumping into Arkfalls often, so the achievements shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just pay attention and if one is near you, drive on over and have fun! Make sure to complete both minor and major arkfalls for Arkhunting and Arkhunting Party. You will also need 10 major arkfalls for Arkhunting Safari. Arkfalls are also a good time to revive another play for A Friend in Need.

EGO and Weapon Skills:
Prepare to spend a good chunk of time making your EGO huge. You'll have to work up to an EGO of 2,500 (EGOtistical, EGOcentric Arkhunter) in addition to unlocking and upgrading EGO powers and perks (Bit of an EGO, Abundance of EGO, Stroking Your EGO, EGO Maniac, Powerful EGO). You will also want to level at least one weapon up to a skill of 20 for Shoot to Skill. Find a weapon type you like and stick with it.

Pursuits:
If you spend any large amount of time in Defiance or are working towards an EGO rating of 2,500, this will come naturally. However, all the pursuit descriptions are in the game, so find a couple you like and focus on them. You will get an achievement for your first (Individual Pursuit), fifth (Hot Pursuit), tenth (Pursuit of Happiness), fifteenth (High Speed Pursuit), and twentieth pursuit (Pursuit of Excellence).

Co-op Maps:
There are achievements for completing each co-op map, so once you unlock them, queue up. The co-op maps are instances completed with four people and are actually a lot of fun. You can do it with randoms or buddy with a few of your friends. They are great for working on weapon skills and grinding loot and XP. The co-op maps are Liberate the Lost (Overdosing), Soleptor Excavation (Broom Closet), Explosions 101 (Save Your Ganchis), Island of Lost Soldiers (Call Me Psycho), The Motherlode (Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!), Commandeer Cronkhite (Not Bad at All), and Scrapworks Salvage (Super Excited).

Reputation:
Once you hit 175 EGO, you can start working on daily and weekly contracts. The more you complete, the faster you will reach Trusted with each faction and the faster the associated achievements will unlock. You will get an achievement for completing your first daily contract for Von Bach Industries (Executive Wash Room), Soleptor Enterprises (Private Booth), Top-Noth Toolworks (Office in Back), and Echelon (Secure Channel). Once you complete any four weekly contracts, you will unlock Seven Days a Week. As you complete contracts, your Status with each faction will increase. There are achievements tied to Familiar (Key to Paradise) and Trusted (Widely Regarded) statuses. Widely Regarded will likely be your last achievement if 2,500 EGO rating isn't.

Other:
There are achievements for jumping a total of 5 kilometers in a vehicle ( Yeeeeeeehaaaaawww!) and swimming a total of 1 kilometer ("Good Cardio"). The achievement for crossing the Golden Gate bridge (Monolithic Landmark) will come with story progression, but you can also get it early if you have a friend in San Francisco. Once you find a Legendary/orange weapon, equip it to unlock Wait For It.... Finally, all your killing will eventually add up to 10,000 kills to unlock Calculated Killer. Once all your other achievements have unlocked, Legend of Defiance will unlock and you will be done!

Castithan Charge Pack DLC

Introduction:
Hello and welcome to Defiance's first DLC--Castithan Charge Pack. The heavily anticipated DLC essentially brings us a whole new side of Defiance to explore, led by the 'horde-like' mode titled arenas. The DLC adds some interesting aspects to our gameplay, and introduces new weapons for some weapon categories. Overall the DLC has been highly anticipated and is somewhat of a letdown for those who had high hopes for Defiance.

In a nutshell the Castithan Charge Pack adds a new character type in the Castithan, new weapons that are Thorn based, some new pursuits, and a horde mode for Defiance. All in all there is quite a bit of content added to the game and quite a bit extra to do now with this $9.99 DLC.

Abbreviated Walkthrough:
Essentially we are looking at a couple "story mission" objectives, followed by some arena play when it comes to the achievements. Once you get to the lighthouse, the remainder of the process will take place here and inside the arenas. In order to grab the 8 achievements we are going to go through three steps: getting through the arenas, grabbing golds, and grinding points. Let's begin.

Story Story and More... Oh Arenas
The first time you run through the arenas I would not worry much about going for gold--simply shoot for the silver and if you nab gold in an arena, job well done, but getting through them and grabbing the end result is the way to go. Pushing through all 5 arenas should take about an hour. With this out of the way you will snag "Thawandaye" for completing the story. You will also grab the first two objectives in the second of two pursuits for completing the story.

Our next step is going back and grabbing gold in each arena.

Arenas till we Cannot Hold Enough Gold:
With some tips and tricks included of course...

Here we will go back and grab the gold in any arenas where we did not grab it the first time around. You may have gotten them naturally by just playing, but incase you did not, refer to each individual arena's guide for specific assistance.

The Tips:

• 2,000 points if you do not die. Absolutely vital to grabbing gold in some of the later arenas.
• The invader class infector is amazing inside the arenas.
• When in doubt between going down and dying or keeping a streak going--GET TO COVER. The 2,000 points you will lose if you die out is absolutely worth having to restart a 10 kill streak.
• Understanding the general spawn cycle and locations of enemies may benefit you, as well as listening to your EGO when she gives you instructions on where enemies are spawning. Keeping the chain up is vital to success.

This step will knock off the following achievements:

• "Yukifyo"
• "Rizifyo"
• "Eminifyo"
• "Valáfyo"
• "Shanjifyo"

This ultimately leads us to our last step--mopping up pursuits and maxing out rep.

Mop Up Pursuits and Finish Reppin'
By the time you get here you should be needing to kill 25 golden skitterlings as well as buy 5 items with Thorn Liro reputation. The skitterlings should be easily mapped in an arena of your choosing and then hunted effectively only worrying about them and then moving on to rushing through arenas for gold medals. I highly suggest picking an arena you will most comfortable with, and personally recommend arena 2 (Rizi Arena) as it may be the easiest with both enemies, and finishing the necessary points early on (I finished gold a few times by mid-round 2).

During this process you will also pass into 'Trusted' status with the Thorn Liro unlocking the other miscellaneous achievement.

Finishing off the pursuits will net you "Caste Master" and maxing out your rep with the Thorn Liro will unlock "Ferick’s Friend."

Arkbreaker DLC

Start by completing the main story mission for the DLC that pops up in the Mount Tam area just above Bloodbath Turnout. Follow this story until you plant a spike on the Golden Gate Bridge which will then unlock "On Demand."

After this you will get two side missions called Combat Tech 1 and 2. One is again near Bloodbath Turnout and the other is at Shondu's Consolate. Complete both to attain "We have the technology". After that you will need to equip and use every variant of stim/spike at a blue rarity level or better. They often drop from combat with pretty much everyone but if you have some scrip and Paradise Rep then go to the merchant at Eastshore Docks and you can simply purchase them. Either way, you will be able to snag "Acupuncture" and "Spike in the Vein" with little trouble.

Now comes the hard part. If you check your map you will see red markers where you can use your ark spikes to call down (or help to call down) arkfalls. Head to a minor arkfall first and call one down, battle the enemies and eventually a Volge Huntmaster will appear. This guy is pretty easy to kill solo, but make sure you land the last hit or you won't get the achievement, it should only take one or two attempts to get "Ark-Rival".

Head to a point that lets you summon a Major arkfall, you will need four ark spikes to do this but there should be plenty of other players to help. You will need to defeat a bunch of foes outside the wreckage and then head inside to beat up some more. Then you drop down to face the Warmaster and have to kill him within the time limit or he escapes. Thanks to a recent patch with the 7th Legion DLC, everyone in the room when he dies will get the achievement (assuming you did some damage). However, he seems to have been buffed even more and takes serious amounts of damage so if you don't have a full crew that know what they are doing then this could take a few tries. Keep at it to get "Master of War".

Now the two clan achievements. Your best bet here is to get into a clan that already has these unlocked or is close to doing so, Freemasons in the US or Nuclear Rubber in the EU are good options (though there is no guarantee that either will let you join). Otherwise you will face a massive grind to get either of these done - just getting from level 9-10 takes 18.8 million XP alone so this is NOT something that can really be done solo. Find a good enough clan and you can snag "They formed a union?" and "Bloody Mess" to finish up.

Conclusion:
First and foremost, have fun in the game. If you enjoy Arkfalls, do them! If you prefer PvP or co-op maps, play that! As an MMO, the game is flexible enough to fit most playstyles. Many of the achievements will unlock without too much focus or effort. Just pay attention to what you are missing and work on those if you want them faster.

7th Legion DLC

Introduction:
The third expansion for Defiance, the 7th Legion, introduces a new world event, incursions, as well as the titular 7th Legion faction. There are new pursuits, weapons and outfits to unlock, as well as a 7th Legion vendor. Unfortunately, there is no storyline, but it does add three new achievements for 75.

Walkthrough:
The three new achievements are very straightforward, and will take you a minimum of 25 days to complete.

Incursions are essentially a series of low-level emergencies moving across the map, all ending with a siege. Complete 25 for "Incursion-Excursion."

You'll also need to complete one of the new pursuits tied to the DLC, "7th Legion Shogun II." This has a few requirements, one of which is completing 25 daily contracts. This alone will take 25 days, but will award you "Shogun-Master" in the end.

Finally, there's one achievement for a random reward, "Lucky-Kitty." This will likely be your first achievement, as it's a reward for completing incursions. This has been reported by some as glitchy, so check the warning in the guide.

Conclusion:
The new achievements aren't too taxing, they just take time. Fortunately, incursions can be a lot of fun. The lack of story content hurts the DLC, though, as apart from the incursions, there is little substance.

7th Legion DLC

Introduction:
The fourth DLC for Defiance is Gunslinger Trials. It adds a new storyline that takes place after the main story, and nine new co-op arenas to challenge you and your friends. It also adds new pursuits, weapons, old west-themed outfits, and three new achievements.

Walkthrough:
The achievements aren't as time-intensive as those found in the 7th Legion DLC, but they are just as grindy.

For "Golden Badge," you'll need to complete all nine of the new co-op arenas with a gold rating, much like the various arena achievements from the Castithan Charge Pack. They aren't too difficult, but you'll want to tackle them with a group, as doing it solo probably won't earn you gold.

"Master Gunslinger" tasks you with being proficient with pistols. You'll have to kill 5000 enemies and reach skill level 10 with them, and fully mod one to get the achievement.

Finally, there's "The General." This one is basically earned by completing all of the DLC's pursuits, so it'll be the last one you get.

Conclusion:
This DLC fares slightly better than the last, as there is some new content included in the co-op arenas. The new arenas can be pretty fun, and one provides a pretty good spot for grinding kills for whatever need you may have.

Arktech Revolution DLC

Introduction:
Welcome to the Arktech Revolution, the final DLC for Defiance. It introduces new end-game content, intended for players whose EGO ratings are above 5000. However, anyone can access the content. Three new achievements are added, once again of the grindy variety.

Once again, there isn't any story to speak of. The add-on introduces Threat Levels, which is a system to scale enemy encounters based on your and other players' EGO rating. The system doesn't always work as intended. There are new weapons, pursuits, and the new Chimera faction and vendor. It also adds not one, but two new currencies, Arkforge, for leveling your weapons, and Caeruleum Cores, for buying high-end weapons at the new vendor.

The meat of the DLC comes in the new difficulties for the existing co-op maps from the base game. There are now Standard, Advanced, and Expert difficulties, with enemies scaled accordingly. 

Walkthrough:
The new achievements will have you completing the co-op maps on Expert, killing scores of high level enemies, and completing contracts. Overall, they will take you at least 30 days to complete.

"The Lion's Claw" is the long haul here. You'll need to reach reliable status with the Chimera faction, and because of the lack of weekly contracts, you'll only be able to earn 10 rep per day until you reach 300 rep (hence the 30 days). The other requirements will come as you earn the rep.

For "The Unbreakable Horn," you'll need to complete the seven co-op maps on Expert difficulty. If you're not EGO 5,000, you'll need a friend who's 5,000 to get you in. These are the same co-op maps that shipped with the game, so you should be familiar with them. Group up with three others and knock them out.

Lastly, "The Snake's Bite" wants you to kill a bunch of high-level enemies. This should come as you go for the other achievements, but you can seek them out if you know where to look.

Conclusion:
The Defiance DLC ends with not a bang, but a whimper. There's very little new content in this add-on, and only achievement hunters (or those with season passes) will likely bother completing it.