I don't know about a blog post; but if it helps narrow your search it was around update 173 that new achievement milestones were added and the Death Sentence difficulty got added.

As for the ability to reach 1000 achievements without ever having touched DS or DSOD, we can easily work this out ourselves:

There's 84 heists with difficulty achievements tied to them (I think I counted this correctly; but my apologies if I'm off by one or two). Since we're missing two achievements for each heist (DS, and DSOD), that's 168 achievements off the table.

Next, there are 11 contractors (again, I think I counted that correctly) that offer completion achievements for all their heists. Once again we're missing two achievements for each contractor, so 22 extra achievements aren't obtainable.

Finally, we have the two achievements tied to full heist completion (the difficulty masks) for both DS and DSOD.

I don't believe there are any non-difficulty achievements that require DS or DSOD (there are some that require Death Wish though).

168 + 22 + 2 = 192

There are 1342 achievements in the game currently, so 1342 - 192 = 1150.

1150 achievements are achievable without ever completing a heist in DS or DSOD. Even if I've missed a heist or two, or a contractor, there's plenty of breathing room.

Originally posted by Blockhead:

I don't know about a blog post; but if it helps narrow your search it was around update 173 that new achievement milestones were added and the Death Sentence difficulty got added.

As for the ability to reach 1000 achievements without ever having touched DS or DSOD, we can easily work this out ourselves:

There's 84 heists with difficulty achievements tied to them (I think I counted this correctly; but my apologies if I'm off by one or two). Since we're missing two achievements for each heist (DS, and DSOD), that's 168 achievements off the table.

Next, there are 11 contractors (again, I think I counted that correctly) that offer completion achievements for all their heists. Once again we're missing two achievements for each contractor, so 22 extra achievements aren't obtainable.

Finally, we have the two achievements tied to full heist completion (the difficulty masks) for both DS and DSOD.

I don't believe there are any non-difficulty achievements that require DS or DSOD (there are some that require Death Wish though).

168 + 22 + 2 = 192

There are 1342 achievements in the game currently, so 1342 - 192 = 1150.

1150 achievements are achievable without ever completing a heist in DS or DSOD. Even if I've missed a heist or two, or a contractor, there's plenty of breathing room.

No I'm well aware it's possible to do raw numbers wise. What I'm curious about is what that process looks like if you're a new player who doesn't have access to the now permanently missing licensed DLC which locks you out of a lot of those, and how hard it is to do with what you have available.

Older account but it is a player that has been consistently been playing with no DLC to show what is and is not achievable without owning any paid DLC. Kind of useful as a reference point even if they made it prior to stuff being delisted. However majority of achievements are still just doable if you make friends with people that can host DLC heists etc. (Also career mode still, I think, allows you to do heists that were removed.)

https://steamcommunity.com/id/DLClessDAN/

Edit: Also link to the update news page for the updated that added the 1000 achievement milestone but you would been wrong as it has 0 mention of death sentence or one down:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/218620/announcements/detail/1666772311070168482

Originally posted by Rampy470:

No I'm well aware it's possible to do raw numbers wise. What I'm curious about is what that process looks like if you're a new player who doesn't have access to the now permanently missing licensed DLC which locks you out of a lot of those, and how hard it is to do with what you have available.

As Cloaker mentions, you can join other people who have the DLC to get the achievements (for example, someone else can host the Continental heists for the newer player). I don't believe there are any achievements that are now impossible due to the delicensed content (Tip the Scales was an infamously difficult achievement to get for new players, but Sidetrack changed it to no longer rely on John Wick content). Some achievements are tied directly to DLC ownership (such as the achievement to hit a mariachi band member with the maracas on San Martin, as the maracas come with the DLC); but the vast majority aren't.

Are you trying to find out how many achievements are possible if someone never plays any delisted heists (as in, they never join someone else who owns the heists) and, as part of that, never plays DS or DSOD?

Originally posted by Blockhead:

Originally posted by Rampy470:

No I'm well aware it's possible to do raw numbers wise. What I'm curious about is what that process looks like if you're a new player who doesn't have access to the now permanently missing licensed DLC which locks you out of a lot of those, and how hard it is to do with what you have available.

As Cloaker mentions, you can join other people who have the DLC to get the achievements (for example, someone else can host the Continental heists for the newer player). I don't believe there are any achievements that are now impossible due to the delicensed content (Tip the Scales was an infamously difficult achievement to get for new players, but Sidetrack changed it to no longer rely on John Wick content). Some achievements are tied directly to DLC ownership (such as the achievement to hit a mariachi band member with the maracas on San Martin, as the maracas come with the DLC); but the vast majority aren't.

Are you trying to find out how many achievements are possible if someone never plays any delisted heists (as in, they never join someone else who owns the heists) and, as part of that, never plays DS or DSOD?

Only about 80 achievements are hard DLC required, so not even 10% of all of them.