The Stanley Parable

The Stanley Parable

26 ratings
Achieve the Unachievable with old version
By Basost
Get Unachievable without modifying game files.
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Background
The story of this achievement is that at release, you'd need to meet some unknown criteria and have a bit of luck (like a 1 in 15 chance) to get it. However, as people were figuring it out, the developer would patch the game to change the criteria.

The descent into madness of both the players and the developer is well documented in a nice blogpost[www.themutegamer.com] and a huge thread on the forums.

Players started to reverse engineer the game to figure the rules out. They found some shady workarounds by editing the game files, which is explained in many guides. Isn't that a bit cheating though?

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137924364

As far as I know, it is currently unknown what the developer intended way to get the achievement is in the latest version.

Old Version
However, from reading the forum thread, we can figure out that at least at some point the achievement could be gotten from loading a saved game. This user got their achievement on 19 Oct, 2013 @ 10:21pm CEST.

According to steamdb's history[steamdb.info], they must have been playing depot 1072861593784438029 at the time.

You can get Steam to download that version and get the achievement using the loading method. Isn't that less cheating?
Guide
The first steps are based on https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/611h5e/guide_how_to_download_older_versions_of_a_game_on/.

  1. Open the Steam console (steam://nav/console). Probably easiest to do via the reddit link.
  2. Enter: download_depot 221910 221911 1072861593784438029
  3. Wait for the download to finish (it'll say where it ended up in the console)
  4. Go to the game installation and move all the files out of there.
  5. Move the just downloaded files into the game location
  6. Start the Stanley Parable from Steam

Now you're running the old version. I did this to get the achievement.

  1. Start the game
  2. Make a save after the intro
  3. Go back to main menu
  4. Load the save
  5. Walk around a bit (<30 seconds)
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 until the achievement pops (it took be about 20 tries, your mileage may vary)

(After this you can move the original files back or tell Steam to verify the download to get back to the latest version.)
9 Comments
Roger Daniels 3 Dec, 2024 @ 3:40pm 
I wonder what these hidden criterias actually are? Is there anybody who managed to get the achievenemnt legit in 2024? I am not saying the solution secribed in this guide isn't legit, I'd assume it is, but I am just guessing
supi_loo 24 Mar, 2023 @ 6:04pm 
amazing, cant believe i actually got the achievement semi-legit. thanks for the help!
Null 19 Mar, 2023 @ 8:30pm 
Going to try this, but judging by the comments it actually works... ur a fucking legend
Alex Rakitsky 18 Mar, 2023 @ 12:17am 
This method still works, got it after 30 tries or so. Thank you!
Dogman15 24 May, 2022 @ 12:50am 
Major props for detailing how to get it the old way.
David_Sh 23 May, 2022 @ 10:15pm 
Good
Basost  [author] 11 May, 2022 @ 2:15pm 
I tried it again and it worked for me :)
(It should be downloaded to something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_221910\depot_221911)
But thanks for the tip about DepotDownloader, that may be more convenient for some!
SCHENEV 11 May, 2022 @ 1:41am 
Steam console doesn't work. Here's a link to the DepotDownloader installation guide:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/achievementscouts/discussions/0/1768133742953392487/#c1752402822293076081


The command you have to type into cmd (Change "-username" and "-password" for your Steam account):

dotnet DepotDownloader.dll -app 221910 -depot 221911 -manifest 1072861593784438029 -username YOURUSERNAME -password YOURPASSWORD
matti.zbinden 4 Jan, 2022 @ 1:50pm 
Thanks, man! Worked perfectly for me, although downloading older game versions via steam console is down for more than a year now and you have to use DepotDownloader instead.