Embark Studios has taken an unexpected step towards the PvE audience by adding bot matches to its competitive arena shooter, The Finals. The situation turned out to be paradoxical, as the release of PvE content was most actively demanded by the community of another project from the studio — the extraction shooter ARC Raiders.
The addition of AI-controlled opponents within Season 11 of The Finals, along with other improvements, has already yielded results. The game's peak player count rose to its highest level in the last ten months. Players and analysts note that a similar introduction could significantly boost the player count in ARC Raiders as well, which has faced a number of problems due to a lack of PvE content during its nine months on the market.
The new mode is currently in the beta testing stage and is designed to help beginners or returning players adapt to the game's dynamic environment. The developers highlighted several key mechanics of the new mode:
Despite thousands of requests from ARC Raiders players, Embark Studios deliberately refuses to implement PvE into the core version of the game. According to the creators, the constant risk of PvP encounters is a fundamental basis for creating the unique gameplay situations they envisioned in the concept of the extraction shooter.
Currently, the studio is testing a separate version of ARC Raiders with support for PvE map conditions exclusively for the Chinese market. The developers provide no guarantees that these developments will appear in the Western version of the game. At the same time, discussions are ongoing in the community regarding potential compromises: from creating AI raiders on the map to introducing "PvE-lite" servers where players are in the same raid but cannot harm each other (although the latter option, according to critics, disrupts the game's realistic atmosphere).
Reminder: Blizzard is preparing new games in the StarCraft and Diablo universes.
