- Estimated achievement difficulty: 5/10
- Offline: 50 (1000 )
- Online: 0
- Approximate amount of time to 1000 : 30+ hours
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 2+
- Number of missable achievements: 4
- Glitched achievements: None
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No Cheats
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: No
Overall this game is not very hard, especially since you can play it on easy and still get all the achievements.
Introduction:
Welcome to Venetica! This game has a total of 50 achievements and requires two full playthroughs to get its two different endings. In the game you can chose between three guilds that you can join and you are required to complete all guild missions for one of the achievements, so after you are through with the two playthroughs (with different guilds each time) you need part of another playthrough where you join the last remaining guild. Luckily you do not need to complete the game again this last time, only focus on the quests of the remaining guild.
The game has four missable achievements: Apple Wine, Stealth Master, Rogue Vengeance, and High Esteem.
As far as glitches go, the game is definitely not bug-free, but doesn't yet have confirmed glitches that impact achievements. What can happen though is that due to a bug (e.g.: the rogue who stole the key from the Persian sometimes disappears from the cut-scene and the game completely, so you can not get the key back) you can not progress in the story and have to reload an earlier save. As always with these games, save often. There is no autosave, so make sure you save every half an hour or so. I would also suggest that you use at least five different save slots.
I recommend that you create and keep a save once you obtained the “Trust to be Earned” mission from Nox. This is the point where you have to choose between the three guilds. You can only be a member of one guild per playthrough, so this should be the point you will replay the game from when you completed your first two playthroughs.
First Playthrough
During your first playthrough you should focus on getting all achievements that you can obtain in one game. I recommend starting by finishing the game the honorable way and joining the Order of the Holy Seal guild. In this game you will get as strong as possible in the game, so I recommend you try for the No Drugs achievement during this playthrough. It sounds tricky, but you can do many other things to restore health (e.g: sleeping, take it from enemies with mental powers, getting a doctor to heal you) avoiding healing items does not make the game a lot more difficult.
In the end you should have six achievements missing, one for the alternative ending and five for the guild missions you could not complete yet.
In general, use the optional quest guide to make sure you accept and solve as many quests as possible. The quests there together with the main quests will ensure that you have the Quest Master achievement by the end of Act 3.
To achieve the honorable ending all you have to do is to watch out for your conversations with Benedict and your father, Death. Always pick answers that suggest that the reason you do all this is for and to be with Benedict again, avoid the ones that suggest revenge or vengeance. In the end, let Death kill Victor. Solving the quest as described in the quest guide might also help. Altogether, expect to spend 18+ hours on this playthrough.
Here are the missable achievements in the order they appear in the game: Apple Wine, Stealth Master, High Esteem, and Rogue Nightmare.
In this game you will join the Order of the Holy Seal, so make sure you grab the unfitting plate mail from the chest in your room in the Order, and also in the third act go and train group fighting with Rangar.
Second Playthrough
Start again on easy from the very beginning, but this time go for the villainous ending. This ending requires that every time you talk to Benedict and Death pick answers that suggest you do all this for revenge and vengeance. During the quests, always pick to fight as soon as the option is there and in the end, kill Victor yourself.
When doing the mission “Trust to be Earned” for Nox, choose one of the remaining two guilds (the Net of the Mask or the Hooded Wings) and finish their questline. Create a save right after accepting the mission from Nox, this save you will reuse for the third partial playthrough.
While playing, focus only on the main storyline and the quests for your guild. In the first story mission in the Inner City, you have to talk to Tusker in his hideout. If you tell him who you are, you instantly get to the ship. If not, you have to reach 300 reputation points to progress the story. In this latter case, just do two rogue and one gripper queen missions, they give you 100 rep each and are quickly finished. It takes about 9 hours to run through the game like this.
Clean up – Third (partial) Playthrough
Use the save created during the second playthrough, just after accepting the “Trust to be Earned” quest from Nox. This time pick the last guild and play through their missions. Unfortunately all guild missons require that you access the Arsenal, so you have to progress the story as far as killing Hector on the ship. It is also necessary that you get the skill to talk to the dead, which you obtain by cleaning up the chapel for Brother Johan in the Arsenal, put together the statue and meet Benedict. It takes about 5 more hours to finish the missions for the last guild, once it is done, the Knowledge of the Guilds achievement unlocks and you have finished the game. Congratulations.
Thanks for Tender Branson8's tips to complete the Roadmap.