Achievements and progress
Penguin Colony has 16 achievements. The list names seven playable species plus one it keeps secret, and Steam's day-one unlock rates run from 100% for the first swap down to 15% for the hieroglyphics.
Penguin Colony ships with 16 achievements, and the list does more than count progress: it names the playable penguins and points at two things the store page never mentions. The percentages below are Steam's global unlock rates, read on 17 October 2026, the first day the full game was live.
The full list, in unlock order
| Achievement | What it asks for | Unlocked |
|---|---|---|
| Adelie | Swap to the Adelie penguin | 100% |
| Emperor | Swap to the Emperor penguin | 99.3% |
| Emperor baby | Swap to the baby Emperor penguin | 99.3% |
| Rockhopper | Swap to the Rockhopper penguin | 97.2% |
| Magellanic | Swap to the Magellanic penguin | 85.3% |
| Linux | Swap to the Gentoo penguin | 78.9% |
| Where am I? | Swap to the Chinstrap penguin | 78.6% |
| Nope | Fall into a crevasse | 71.8% |
| Insightful | Collect twenty Insights | 50.6% |
| Shoggoth | Get caught by a Shoggoth | 48.6% |
| Freezing Water | Fall into the water as a baby penguin | 43.4% |
| Sweet! | Land a trick successfully | 22.4% |
| Teleporter | Use a teleporter | 17.9% |
| Photograph | Find five of Rogers' photographs | 17.7% |
| Exotic species | Find the species of penguin never recorded by man | 16.3% |
| Encountering a language unrecorded by man | Encounter the strange hieroglyphics | 15.3% |
What the list gives away
- Seven named species, plus one the game withholds. The swap achievements name Adelie, Emperor, baby Emperor, Rockhopper, Magellanic, Gentoo and Chinstrap. The eighth entry is "the species of penguin never recorded by man", which the list never names, and penguin species covers what the bodies actually change.
- Insight is a counter, not just a stat. "Collect twenty Insights" is the only numbered collection goal on the list, and it sits close to the halfway mark, which makes it the game's main optional loop.
- Two entries stay hidden until you earn them: the Shoggoth grab and the hieroglyphics.
- Tricks and teleporters are real systems. Both have their own achievements and both sit under a quarter of players, so they are easy to finish the game without finding.
Reading day-one percentages
These numbers will move for weeks, partly because of how Steam counts them. The denominator is everyone who owns the game, and on a launch day new buyers arrive faster than unlocks accumulate, so early entries sit near 100% while anything late sits low. The gap between 78% swapping into a Chinstrap and 16% finding the unrecorded species is therefore a mix of difficulty, progress and timing, not a difficulty ranking. Read the order as a rough picture of what players do first.
What to chase first
- Swap through every penguin you can find early. The seven species entries do that job for you, and the swap is also your traversal tool for gaps adults cannot fit through.
- The Insight total is the one number to watch if you want a completion target, since twenty is the only count the game asks for.
- Keep an eye out for Rogers' photographs and any teleporter you pass. Both are easy to miss on a first pass and both are hidden inside places the main route does not take you.