Overwatch is not a game that many play for achievements. However, many players may want to strive for them either for the bragging rights, the exclusive spray that comes with many of them, or to simply mix things up during some of their matches. For those players looking for a challenge, they're in luck because Overwatch's achievements are generally pretty difficult with some of them hardly being earned by any players at all even with the game being released for years now.
There are multiple reasons that Overwatch achievements tend to be so difficult, but a large one is that the game is multiplayer only. This means that getting many of the game's achievements requires players to not only excel at particular heroes but also to happen to stumble on perfect opportunities to get the achievements during matches. Many times this can require a lot of luck on the part of players, or even enemy players doing some very specific things during the match. This means that getting many of the achievements are going to require Overwatch players to get pretty lucky.
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Many of the hardest achievements to get in Overwatch require a lot of skill with a particular player as well as a lot of luck. One of the very hardest is the achievement "The Floor Is Lava" which requires a Lucio player to get three killing blows while wall riding without dying. The achievement would not be bad at all if it was cumulative, but it all has to be in a single wall ride, resulting in many players who have the achievement getting it from enemy teams willingly giving it to them. Another difficult achievement can only be earned while playing Overwatch's assassin hero Widowmaker. Named "Smooth As Silk," the achievement requires players to be really good at clicking heads so that they can kill an enemy with a headshot while airborne.
One of the very hardest in the game requires players to be very lucky and talented at playing the Omnic healer Zenyatta. The "Rapid Discord" achievements require players to get four kills or assists with Zenyatta's Orb of Discord ability all within six seconds. This achievement is tricky because it requires not only the enemy team to be grouped tightly together but also the player's team killing the enemies very quickly and in the order that Zenyatta's Discord Orb goes. There is also an extremely rare achievement that players can get when playing Overwatch's shotgun-wielding Reaper. The achievement, named "Waste Not, Want Not" requires Reaper players to get 3 solo kills with a single clip of Reaper's shotguns. This is incredibly difficult as it requires Reaper to find heroes with low enough health grouped together, and without having taken any damage by anyone else all while also killing them with headshots and not dying themselves.
Overwatch also has seasonal events that come around the same time every year, each with its own cosmetics, game mode, and associated achievements. This can make the achievements for the modes extremely hard to get because players have such a limited about of time to get them each year. One of these is "Ambush!" which players can only get during Overwatch's winter event. The achievement requires the player to kill 3 enemies that are picking up snow during the event's limited time Mei's Snowball Offensive mode, which is extremely circumstantial. And perhaps one of the most difficult Overwatch event achievements is "Survivor." The achievement is only available during Overwatch's Halloween event and requires players to beat the event's horde game mode Junkenstein's Revenge Endless on the expert difficulty and then survive an additional four waves.
The Archives event offers players multiple missions that they can play in teams of four against hordes of AI-controlled enemies, and many of those also include some very difficult achievements. Each of the missions has its own achievement for beating it on Legendary difficulty, which will require a team of four players who are extremely good at Overwatch and dedicated enough to fail dozens of times. One particularly hard achievement is "Clean Getaway" which tasks players with completing the Retribution mission on Expert difficulty without a single character going down at all. For teams that do want to get the achievement likely have to take it slow while taking full advantage of the mission's healer, Overwatch's mad scientist Moira.
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There are also some achievements that can be completed in any match of Overwatch while playing as any hero, but that can still be very difficult. One of these is the achievement "The Path Is Closed" because it depends on a member of the enemy team playing Symmetra. The achievement requires players to destroy three of the enemy Symmetra's teleporters in a single match, which requires players to counter player the Symmetra heavily throughout the match and can depend a lot on luck to find them. Another achievement relies on players playing one of Overwatch's most popular modes, escort. The achievement is called "Escort Duty" and requires players to push a payload 100 meters without ever leaving it, which can be extremely hard to do unless the player's team dominates the match.
"Survival Expert" is another difficult achievement as it requires players to heal 900 health in a single life using only health packs. This can be hard for a variety of reasons. Players have to get damaged only to retreat without getting healed by one of their team's two healers to get a health pack. It also can be hard because retreating to use a health pack so frequently can also leave one's team in a very poor position at the start of a team fight, which often spells disaster. The final hard achievement isn't necessarily difficult skill-wise, but it does demand a serious commitment from players. Named "Decked Out" the achievement requires players to get 50 cosmetics for a single character. This can be difficult as cosmetics are almost entirely dependant on randomized loot boxes and with Overwatch continuously adding new characters the likes of getting cosmetics for one character have steadily decreased over the game's lifetime. Regardless, there are some achievements to strive for in Overwatch for any players willing to invest the time. Hopefully, Overwatch 2 will include some fun achievements when it releases as well.
Overwatch is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.