Arc Raiders devs "still learning" what to do with PvP, but Embark design director says PvE fights are doing their job: "They make the player interactions even more impactful"

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Arc Raiders fan debates, developer soul-searching, and subsequent patches about the multiplayer shooter's combination of PvP and PvE elements don't seem to ever end, but they still haven't led Embark Studios to its holy grail – the ideal blend of the two types of gameplay. But design director Virgil Watkins, per a recent interview with GamesRadar+, at least believes Embark is getting close.

Watkins says – as other Embark developers have alluded to before – PvP and PvE is "not a simple balance to get right. Something we've learned, and are still learning, is how to tune those PvP and PvE elements so that they feel fair, rewarding, and aligned with what players expect, while still staying true to the core vision of the game."

But, "One element I think we got pretty right is that the PvE elements command your attention and respect almost as much as other players do; maybe more sometimes," Watkins says. "When the PvE elements are genuinely compelling, they make the player interactions even more impactful."

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Embark has gotten to this point by spending "a lot of time listening to the community and observing how people actually play, and that continues to shape how we evolve the experience," says Watkins.

Its developers need to be adaptable and agreeable, because one of their favorite qualities about PvP and PvE is the same reason the combination is so hard to work with: "unpredictability," says Watkins. "You're not just designing around AI encounters or player-versus-player competition in isolation but rather creating situations where those systems interact."

In-game, this is less messy than it sounds. Players are simply always able to "choose how they approach a situation, whether that's working together, avoiding conflict, or seeking it. That flexibility has been really important in creating those player-driven stories we've seen emerge," says Watkins.

Embark has nudged this over time, adding PvE hotspots like Close Scrutiny Arc salvos, and quietly making PvP more rewarding with recent weapon durability changes that make the guns you borrow from other raiders more valuable.

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Craving more of this choose-your-own adventure, the director hopes other studios will soon take a similar route to Embark use PvP and PvE to provide their players with lots of bendy environments, "in no small part because I just love playing those types of games," Watkins says. As for Embark itself, the studio is maybe halfway to figuring out how it wants its own formula to behave.

"It's a slippery slope to try and build a game for an audience": Marathon, Arc Raiders, and Last Flag devs dig into the trend-bucking evolution of multiplayer shooters.

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Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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