**Spartan Assault: pick the right version before chasing the achievements**

**Spartan Assault: pick the right version before chasing the achievements** Spartan Assault is one of those games where a guide can be right about the mission and still send you after the wrong achievement. The Xbox versions and the PC versions do not have identical lists. That matters before you start repeating levels for gold stars or grinding weapon kills. **What the campaign actually includes** There are thirty solo missions, arranged into six operations of five missions each: - A: Umbra. - B: Tempered Shield. - C: Monolith. - D: Captured Chance. - E: Frostbite. - F: Hydra. The original release had the first twenty-five. Hydra added the last five. The Steam release includes thirty, and the console release includes Hydra as part of its campaign offering. An old review talking about twenty-five missions is describing the earlier release, not a reason to stop at Operation E. The console Flood co-op mode is another five missions. It is not a two-player option for those thirty campaign missions, and it is not included in the Steam version. The five co-op scenarios are Checkpoint, Holding the Fort, Structural Integrity, Transmission Interrupted and Power Net. **Which achievement list are you using?** **Steam:** the official Steam FAQ lists twenty-five achievements. It separates the original campaign's gold-star and Assault Ops targets from Operation F's targets. Hydra has its own Tour of Duty and A for Effort achievements. **Xbox One:** thirty achievements, with the console co-op achievements included. Extra Credit covers all ninety mission-specific Assault Ops. Do not stop after the first seventy-five because a PC guide told you that was enough. **Xbox 360:** use its own list. The existence of a similarly named Xbox One achievement does not establish its Gamerscore, requirements or current unlock status on 360. **Old Windows/mobile releases:** treat these as separate versions, not interchangeable ways to earn the Steam list. Historical cross-platform progression reports are not a promise that an old account, mobile install or cloud synchronization will still work today. There are accessible Steam and Xbox product pages, but I am not treating that as a live test of every older storefront or the online co-op servers. If you are buying specifically for co-op, verify the version and the multiplayer requirements shown for your account first. **How I would split up a completion run** Start with campaign completion. Learn the objectives and use the weapons the missions give you. Then return for individual mission feats, gold stars and the three Assault Ops attached to each mission. Those are different targets. Keeping an escort alive is not the same job as farming a particular weapon's kills. Trying to do both while learning the map can make a short mission take far longer than it needs to. For each mission, keep four boxes: completed, gold, special achievement if applicable, and three Assault Ops checked individually. Keep Operation F on the same sheet, but separate its achievement totals according to your platform. One more important difference from the main games: Spartan Assault's skulls increase the XP reward, not your mission score. Turning on a pile of skulls is not a shortcut to a gold star. Use them when a challenge requires them or when you deliberately want the extra difficulty and XP.