Achievement Hunter was a part of Rooster Teeth Productions, an American company that makes video game content. It was started by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo on July 6, 2008. The website first focused on a game feature called achievements but later became an important part of Rooster Teeth, sharing many types of videos about video games.

Achievement Hunter ended after posting its last video on October 1, 2023. All members of the team moved to other projects within Rooster Teeth, which itself stopped working in May 2024.

History and development

In 2008, Geoff Ramsey noticed that there was no website where gamers could share information about achievements. Since Ramsey and Burnie Burns, then CEO of Rooster Teeth, both loved achievements and competed to earn the most in their free time, Ramsey had an idea to create a website where gamers and fans could find guides on how to get specific achievements. Ramsey talked to Burns about making a website based on achievements; Burns agreed, and Ramsey created Achievement Hunter, which had a similar design to the main Rooster Teeth website. Later, Ramsey said he was tired of working on Red vs. Blue and wanted to try something new in his spare time. With help from employee Jack Pattillo, Ramsey regularly released achievement guides and Easter egg videos, often with support from volunteers in the Rooster Teeth community. David Dreger also helped start the site.

In 2011, Achievement Hunter hired Ryan Haywood as an editor and manager. Haywood later became a host in March 2012 and became one of the main crew members. Four new shows were added to Achievement Hunter in 2011. One of them, Rage Quit, led to the hiring of Michael Jones as a full-time staff member in August 2011.

In December 2011, Achievement Hunter began making Let's Play videos. The success of these videos led to a weekly sub-series in 2012, where the main hosts played Minecraft. Weekly Let's Play videos focused on Grand Theft Auto games were also released. Let's Play Grand Theft Auto was usually released on Mondays, and Let's Play Minecraft on Fridays.

In 2012, Achievement Hunter hired Gavin Free, who had helped the company for many years. In March 2012, Achievement Hunter launched Game Night, where Ramsey and Caleb Denecour played games with community members. The series switched to a live stream format in 2014. Community member Ray Narvaez Jr. was hired in April 2012 after working as a contract host for several years. Later, in September 2012, contract editor Franco Scarcello created Five Facts, hosted by Pattillo and Ramsey, which shared little-known facts about video games. The show was not renewed for a sixth season in May 2016.

In early 2013, Achievement Hunter introduced a competition series called VS, where employees challenged each other to play games. In April 2013, Achievement Hunter launched their own YouTube channel, which hosted a variety of their videos. Later that year, the company retired Achievement HORSE and replaced it with Achievement HUNT, where employees competed until the word "HUNT" was spelled.

In October 2013, Pattillo hosted a 24-hour live stream for Extra Life, a charity that helps hospitalized children. With appearances from other Achievement Hunter members and Rooster Teeth employees, the live stream raised $340,000. This event became annual, with 2014's stream raising over $442,000 for Children's Miracle Network. At RTX in July 2014, community members Matt Bragg and Jeremy Dooley were hired as editors and secondary hosts at Achievement Hunter.

On February 5, 2015, Achievement Hunter officially started the Let's Play Network YouTube channel. This channel allowed multiple Rooster Teeth-owned and affiliated groups, such as Funhaus, ScrewAttack, Cow Chop, Kinda Funny, and Sugar Pine 7, to upload gameplay videos. Most of the channel's content still came from Achievement Hunter.

In early 2015, Achievement Hunter hosted the first Let's Play Live event at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. In April 2015, Narvaez left the company as a full-time employee to focus on Twitch live-streaming, though he continued voicing his character for the company's X-Ray and Vav animated series until its cancellation. In mid-2015, Achievement Hunter launched a new YouTube channel named after themselves, where they uploaded videos previously shared on the Rooster Teeth channel. They also moved out of Rooster Teeth's Stage 5 office into their own space nearby.

Dooley became a main host in October 2015 during an episode of Let's Play Minecraft. A weekly podcast called Off Topic, hosted by Michael Jones, was announced in early October. Four test episodes were aired live and only available to "First Members" on the website. The first official episode was later released publicly. Jones is the main host of the show and appears frequently with other Achievement Hunter employees and guests, including Patricia Summersett, Arin Hanson, Chef Mike Haracz, and Samm Levine. He also hosts the after-show Last Call, available only to First Members.

Starting in 2015, Achievement Hunter occasionally featured celebrities in their Let's Play videos, including Watsky, Rahul Kohli from iZombie, Dan Campbell from The Wonder Years, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham, Dante Basco, James Buckley, Lannan Eacott, Kumail Nanjiani, and pop punk band Neck Deep.

In January 2016, Lindsay Jones became the head of Achievement Hunter, replacing Ramsey. In April 2016, Achievement Hunter launched two new shows: VR the Champions, which featured Haywood, Dooley, and others testing virtual reality games, and Theater Mode, a First Member-only show where hosts watched bad movies and commented on them. Later in 2016, the company introduced RouLet's Play, where hosts played random games; Heroes and Halfwits, a dungeons and dragons-style game with Haywood, Jones, Ramsey, Griffon Ramsey, and Gus Sorola; and Schooled, where Ramsey and his daughter Millie taught kids to play video games to compete against main members.

In February 2017, Ramsey announced a break from the company. At the same time, Trevor Collins became the new head of Achievement Hunter, replacing Jones. Two months into Ramsey's break, he and Millie premiered the second season of Schooled, where kids trained to battle each other. In April 2017, Achievement Hunter toured the east coast with Funhaus to perform Let's Play Live! in New Jersey, Maryland, and Florida.

As part of Rooster Teeth's Pilot Month, a test episode of a new ghost-hunting show called Achievement Haunter premiered on May 17, 2018. The episode was successful, and the series was approved for an eight-episode first season, which aired on October 31, 2018.

Hardcore Tabletop, a show that reimagines board games with real-world twists, premiered on August 21, 2018. The first season featured Achievement Hunter personalities playing Monopoly with real money, with a chance to win up to $20,580. The second season, titled Hardcore Tabletop: World Series, aired on April 10, 2019,

Let's Play Live

Let's Play Live! was an on-stage event organized by Rooster Teeth. During these events, members of Achievement Hunter played video games and performed funny skits in front of a live audience. The first event took place on February 20, 2015, at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas.

In 2016, three additional Let's Play Live! events were held. The first occurred on June 17 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The second was on August 19 at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. The third event happened on October 8 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, New York. These events also included appearances by other members of the Let's Play family, such as Funhaus, ScrewAttack, Kinda Funny, Cow Chop, and The Creatures.

In 2017, four Let's Play Live! shows were part of the East Coast Tour. The tour took place from April 24 to 30. Events were held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey; the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland; Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida; and the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, Florida.

Charity

Members of Rooster Teeth who work outside of Achievement Hunter collaborate with various charities to collect money through live online shows and other methods. This is partly because Jack Pattillo, who is part of both Achievement Hunter and Rooster Teeth's Charity Director role, plays a major part in organizing events. He promotes these events on the Achievement Hunter website and encourages fans and friends to join. He explained this in a statement: "When Rooster Teeth asks its fans to support a cause, we can rely on them to help us create a significant difference."

Through a partnership between Make-A-Wish and Rooster Teeth, the parent company of Achievement Hunter, members of Achievement Hunter met a teenager named Erik Battany at RTX in August 2015. Battany and his family received VIP passes to RTX 2015, where they met the group at a VIP party. The next day, they played a game mission from Assassin's Creed Syndicate with Achievement Hunter members. On May 23, 2014, another visitor from Make-A-Wish, a boy named Jacob, joined the group.

Cast

• Geoff Ramsey (worked as a main character from 2008 to 2019 and appeared in some episodes from 2019 to 2022)
• Jack Pattillo (worked under a contract from 2008 to 2009 and was a main character from 2009 to 2023)
• Gavin Free (worked under a contract from 2008 to 2011 and was a main character from 2012 to 2023; appeared in some episodes in 2023)
• Ray Narvaez Jr. (worked under a contract from 2010 to 2011 and was a main character from 2012 to 2015)
• Caleb Denecour (appeared in some episodes from 2010 to 2016)
• Michael Jones (worked under a contract in 2011 and was a main character from 2011 to 2023)
• Ryan Haywood (appeared in some episodes from 2011 to 2012 and was a main character from 2013 to 2020)
• Lindsay Jones (appeared in some episodes from 2013 to 2016 and was a main character from 2017 to 2023)
• Kdin Jenzen (appeared in some episodes from 2013 to 2016)
• Jeremy Dooley (appeared in some episodes from 2014 to 2015 and 2021 to 2022; was a main character from 2015 to 2021)
• Matt Bragg (appeared in some episodes from 2014 to 2019 and 2022 to 2023; was a main character from 2019 to 2022)
• Trevor Collins (appeared in some episodes from 2015 to 2018 and was a main character from 2018 to 2023)
• Mica Burton (appeared in some episodes from 2016 to 2017)
• Alfredo Diaz (appeared in some episodes from 2017 to 2018 and was a main character from 2019 to 2023)
• Fiona Nova (appeared in some episodes from 2019 to 2021)
• Kylah "Ky" Cooke (was a main character from 2021 to 2022 and appeared in some episodes from 2022 to 2023)
• BlackKrystel (appeared in some episodes from 2021 to 2023)
• Joe "LoeJeez" Lee (appeared in some episodes from 2021 to 2023)

Main Cast, Recurring Cast, and Contract Cast