PvPvE is 'a holy grail of game design,' says Space Marine 2 director, and he's got no plans to chase it: 'A lot of studios are trying to find it and a lot of them fail'

Screenshot taken by Louise Sugden. — (Image credit: Games Workshop/Focus Entertainment/Saber Interactive)

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 supports co-op PvE combat for up to three players. It also offers 6v6 competitive PvP action, for those who are into that sort of thing. But never the twain shall meet, according to game director Dmitry Grigorenko, who said in a recent chat with MP1st that there are no plans for a PvPvE mode, for an eminently practical reason.

"PvPvE is a holy grail of game design," Grigorenko said when asked about the possibility of such a mode being added to Space Marine 2 in the future. "A lot of studios are trying to find it and a lot of them fail. The truth is that it's a very very difficult task. It sounds great on paper, but when you actually start trying, it becomes apparent that it's very annoying when you fight other players only to get backstabbed by an AI opponent.

On paper, some kind of PvPvE mode sounds exciting: You're blasting away at a squad of Chaos Marine goons, bullets are flying, swords are swinging, stuff is blowing up, and all of a sudden, Xenos! But would it really work out that way? I suspect Grigorenko's point is spot-on: Bad outcomes from unpredictable events have great potential for emergent gameplay until it's actually happening to you, at which point the whole thing becomes unalloyed bullshit. Who thought this was a good idea?

And Saber's hands are already full keeping Space Marine 2 balanced as it is. A recent patch added a new difficulty to the game's co-op multiplayer and made some other related changes, and it has not gone over well: Well over 2,000 negative reviews have flooded in since the update went live on October 17, not enough to tank the "mostly positive" rating but sufficient to get attention from publisher Focus Entertainment, which quickly promised that a new patch with "balancing fixes" will be rolled out sometime this week.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.