Marathon and Arc Raiders have spearheaded a wave of extraction shooters which, through their own extremes, have kindled debate about the balance of PvP and PvE in this mixed-experience genre. Marathon leans more into PvP, while Arc Raiders is famous for its friendly, PvE-focused lobbies and just rolled out a brutal PvE map event. Joe Ziegler, game director on Marathon at Bungie, says that balance of PvPvE is the whole point.
Speaking with GamesRadar+, Ziegler focuses on the secret to "a lot of great game experiences." In his view, it boils down to "the empowering feeling that you are in control to make a lot of decisions and deal with those consequences, learn from them, grow better as you encounter new decisions to make." This obviously isn't exclusive to extraction shooters or PvP games, but they can provide especially tense and unpredictable moments.
