Users noticed that the survival game Stranded Deep had a peculiar glitch where it automatically unlocked the host’s trophies for anyone who joined the session. But after weeks of easy Platinums, the glitch has finally been addressed in the latest Stranded Deep update.
Stranded Deep won’t hand out Platinum trophies anymore
As noted by the patch notes on the game’s official site, the fifth bullet point states that “the update has “fixed client (Player 2) unlocking host achievements when joining a multiplayer game.” The replies even call out to the person who originally brought this bug to the attention of developer Beam Team Games.
While likely in the game since around May 30 when the previous update dropped, this bug became more widely known since around July 8 when a PSNProfiles thread blew up after asking if it was normal for the trophies to automatically pop when joining a co-op session. This gave users around three weeks to squad up and unlock all the game’s trophies, which was hotly contested in many trophy communities. Some claimed it cheapened the experience of those who had earned it organically, while others pointed out that it didn’t matter, especially in lieu of the many shovelware games that give players a Platinum after just a few minutes.
Many players took advantage of this glitch. According to The Wayback Machine, only 915 PSNProfiles users and 0.1% of overall players had the Platinum trophy for the North American version as of May 26, 2022. As of July 10, 2023, just as the exploit was picking up steam, that had risen to 2,442 users and 0.3% overall. That number more than doubled by the time the glitch was fixed, as it currently stands at 6,513 Platinum achievers on PSNProfiles with an rarity of 0.4% on PSN.
Many were likely able to unlock it because it is currently on PlayStation Plus Extra and had been a PlayStation Plus game (the tier that would become PlayStation Plus Essential) in May 2021. Stranded Deep is not a big download, either, as it comes in at just over 2GB.
