What Does PvE Mean in Gaming and Game Development?

PvE is a common term in gaming, so if you’re already familiar with it and want to learn more about it from a game development perspective, you can skip directly there.

What Does PvE Mean?

PvE (player versus environment) refers to game scenarios in which players face computer-controlled challenges, such as NPCs, traps or environmental hazards. This term is common in both single-player and co-op (cooperative) games.

In rare instances, PvE is also used interchangeably as PvC (player versus computer) and PvM (player versus monster).

It’s self-explanatory for single-player games, since any kind of challenge or obstacle counts as PvE, but here are some examples of multiplayer co-op PvE games:

• MMORPGs – When World of Warcraft players work together to fight a raid boss or elite mob.
• MUDs – Players can team up to coordinate attacks against bosses in games like BatMud.
• Survival – In ARK: Survival Evolved, players can form alliances (tribes) to make it easier to venture into caves for artifacts or take down bosses.
• Action RPGs – Diablo 4 players frequently group together to take down world bosses.
• CORPGs – Guild Wars 2 incentivizes working together on dynamic events, like this multi-animal encounter that was clearly designed for multiple players:

Games like Escape from Tarkov, ARK and WoW usually offer dedicated PvE servers (meaning you won’t encounter hostile players unless you specifically opt into PvP zones or activities).

This kind of co-op multiplayer allows players to team up, strategize and tackle challenges together, without having to worry about competition.

Exploring the history and evolution of PvE games

Since the majority of video games are PvE, it’s hard to pinpoint their exact starting point. In any case, we’ve come a long way since then—no one could have predicted how widespread and influential these games would become.

To start, here’s a timeline of the evolution of video games, from niche hobby to complete global saturation:

The first PvE game was also the first commercially available game: Computer Space (1971). Players pilot a rocket in space, shooting at and dodging two computer-controlled flying saucers.

Soon after, Pong Doubles (1973), the co-op version of Pong, allowed two players to face off against computer players in tennis matches:

Later text-based adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure (1976) had players solve puzzles and fight monsters entirely through text commands, requiring some imagination.

In the late ‘70s, fancy new arcade cabinet games like Pac-Man (below) and Space Invaders pitted players against waves of enemies, establishing the core concept of PvE.

The 1980s also saw the rise of dungeon-crawler RPGs like Wizardry (1981) and Ultima (1981) that let players explore labyrinthine dungeons while collecting loot and managing a party of characters.

Nintendo changed PvE forever with Super Mario Bros (1985). It laid the foundation for countless side-scrolling platformers and established such core concepts as jumping on enemies’ heads.

PvE titles like The Legend of Zelda (1986) blended puzzle-solving with fast-paced action, memorable bosses and challenging dungeons, establishing much of what we take for granted in games today:

In the early ‘90s, graphical MMORPGs like Neverwinter Nights first went online, revolutionizing the genre with graphical worlds, immersive quests, and large-scale co-op PvE raids.

PvE has since become a staple across various genres, including:

• First-person shooters (e.g. Halo)
• Action RPGs (e.g. Diablo)
• Survival games (e.g. Minecraft)

Over time, increasingly complex games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) and Grand Theft Auto V (2013) started to bring PvE experiences to huge audiences.

The rise of live-service games like Destiny 2 and Helldivers 2 led to PvE games that receive ongoing content updates, keeping the experience fresh and engaging for a consistent long-term player base.

And all these years later, Grand Theft Auto 5 is still averaging more than 100,000 daily players—a far cry from the industry’s humble beginnings, and a mark of how widespread PvE games have become:

PvE vs. PvP: what are the differences?

In PvE, players face computer-controlled challenges like enemies, puzzles, or environments, either alone or cooperatively.

PvP (player versus player), on the other hand, focuses on direct competition between human players:

These are the most common types of PvP matchup modes:

1. One versus one – An arena battle where 2 players duke it out (e.g. 1v1 Smite).
2. Battle royale – A group of players fight until only one remains (e.g. Fortnite).
3. Survival – Players compete to survive in a hostile environment (e.g. Rust).
4. Team battle – Two organized teams battle until one team loses all its members.
   1. Capture the flag – Steal the enemy’s flag.
   2. Deathmatch – Whoever has the most kills, wins.
   3. Escort missions – Haul a payload to its destination.

Some PvE servers also allow you to opt-in to PvP combat.

For example, in WoW, players in a PvP server of the opposite faction can come out of nowhere and kill your character once they’re flagged for combat:

In a PvE server, your characters won’t get flagged for entering specific zones (so your Alliance character can freely wander around a Horde zone), but will if you hit faction-tied NPCs, engage in duels with opposite-faction players or leave a PvP arena.

Whether you’re on a PvP or PvE server, you can opt in to fight in these areas:

• Participate in arena matches – 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 with other players.
• Battlegrounds – Various arenas where you fight for an objective against other players.
• Duels – 1v1 match with players of any faction.
• Open world arenas or events – Zones like Stranglethorn Vale have arenas where any player can jump in and fight.

Caveat: PvE and PvP aren’t always mutually exclusive. Some games blend PvE and PvP, pitting players against human opponents and AI-controlled characters.

Here are some typical AI-vs.-player shenanigans in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe:

Should your PvE game be handcrafted or procedural?

PvE games come in 2 flavors: procedural and handcrafted.

Procedural content is automatically generated by a computer algorithm, which can sometimes make it feel too same-y over time (at least without regular content expansions and carefully crafted rules).

Minecraft and Caves of Qud are games that don’t make this mistake—both are full of procedurally generated content and their gameplay keeps people engaged for hours. For example, Minecraft players in China log an average of 5.84 hours daily:

However, it took nearly 10 years to develop these games to a level where most players can seamlessly enjoy them.

Even these Minecraft sales and player statistics show that it’s hard to create the next big thing when you can’t afford to wait as long as Minecraft did:

Handcrafted content, on the other hand, has the downside of being the most expensive to create.

Just look at the development time for each of these AAA games:

Even an experienced team can spend years creating enough unique experiences to meet players’ expectations—but if the game is immersive and memorable, that investment can pay back dividends.

Handcrafted content also allows for deeper narratives and more cinematic moments since the experience can be carefully controlled.

When we started developing No Rest for the Wicked, it was clear that handcrafted PvE content was the way to go. Unique areas like this section of the Black Trench aren’t really feasible to procedurally generate:

With our experience meticulously designing intertwined worlds, we knew this approach would best showcase the game’s unique art style and gameplay mechanics.

The Breath of the Wild team likely faced a similar challenge—spending years crafting every last shrine, Korok, dungeon and boss encounter:

PvE from a Game Development Perspective

I’ve personally always enjoyed PvE content the most—overcoming the enemies, exploring worlds and enjoying the game as the designers imagined it was compelling and intriguing. 

However, you have to build all of it. Every enemy, every turn, every ability, every character skill. Nothing can happen until you’ve taught the game how to use its pieces.

Sure, there are some shortcuts, but most content-heavy games—especially with a broad vision or strong sense of quality—take a long time to make:

• Baldur’s Gate 3 and Skyrim took nigh on a decade to build.
• No Rest for the Wicked was supposed to take four years and is now deep into year six.
• Even Ori 2, which was planned for just three, took closer to five years—but it’s not hard to see why when, on top of building a metroidvania with numerous gameplay routes and problem-solving tools, we wanted every area to look and feel like this:

Long gone is the era when a single developer could build a game in six months and find it front and center of the Electronics Boutique shelves.

This means the cost of making games will keep growing—which is why scope management is quite literally the most essential skill for developing a PvE game.

You need to understand quickly which of your ideas, mechanics and efforts are having the desired impact on the players, and which need to be cut.

Some designers solve gameplay and balance issues like these by creating separate rules for each PvP and PvE mode, like how Elden Ring’s Caelid Colosseum is the only one that lets you summon these Spirit Ashes:

Similarly, I think the only type of game harder than PvE to create is Co-op PvE, due to the dramatically increased number of character skills, interactions and expectations to be handled.

No wonder, then, that so many mobile games focus on simple, generative puzzles, or are simply PvP games!

Why make a PvE game?

Since developing a PvE game can be complex and time-consuming, designers typically choose this path when they want players to solve the content.

With PvP games, players continuously adapt to outplay each other, but in PvE, the computer doesn’t care about losing—it’s happy to let that level 1 slime die.

This allows PvE designers to create a smooth learning curve, gradually increasing the difficulty with frequent player skill tests that allow for safe experimentation with your expanded toolkit.

Even Dark Souls and Elden Ring, often framed as deeply challenging games, start with simple “flailer” enemies that serve as a blocking and dodging tutorial:

Furthermore, PvE is the more fitting format for narrative-focused games since these typically feature:

• A complex plot revealed gradually through story events
• Character development from overcoming psychological, emotional or physical obstacles
• Consequential decisions, especially aligning with or resisting power structures in the game’s world

When we were working on World of Warcraft, each quest designer (after the first expansion) placed their own enemies.

This map of Azsuna shows how they made some encounters easily accessible, while others were scattered to the far corners of the land:

This let them create cultural, themed content that reinforced the story being told in that pocket of the world—and it just wouldn’t be plausible in a PvP game.

While gameplay designers and systems designers still had to add character abilities, the additional flourishes of feeding hungry ogres poisoned food helped make the world feel more cohesive and significant.

These are the pros and cons of making PvE games

It’s not an exhaustive list, but here are some of the greatest benefits of PvE experiences:

• You can create as much or as little content as you need.
• They support deeper narrative elements, which help drive player curiosity and emotional attachment.
• Enemies/bosses/traps can be overcome through practice and determination, encouraging players.
• The design team has full control over the difficulty curve throughout the game.

That said, you might also want to consider these drawbacks:

• It takes far more work to keep PvE games engaging in the long-term.
• Creating content, especially for live service games, is an ongoing effort.
• These types of games are usually one-and-done experiences.
  • Roguelikes and procedurals are notable attempts to push back against this trend.
• Polishing the game is unforgiving—even small bugs and mistakes can block players from enjoying the rest of the experience.

Some designers will tolerate greater time and development costs to pursue their vision, but for others, there’s often another motivating factor—the anticipated revenue.

What’s the revenue potential for PvE games?

Here are the sales numbers for some of the most popular AAA games:

• Minecraft – Sold more than 300 million copies and has more than 170 million monthly active players.
• Genshin Impact – Has more than 60 million monthly active players.
• Grand Theft Auto 5 – Sold more than 200 million units and has more than 100,000 users.
• Elden Ring – Sold more than 25 million copies—not to mention all the new revenue from its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC’s success, according to FromSoftware themselves:

Indie games, however, aren’t far behind their AAA counterparts:

• Palworld – Sold more than 25 million units in less than a year and has more than 660,000 active monthly players.
• Helldivers 2 – Sold over 12 million copies in its first 12 weeks.
• Baldur’s Gate 3 – Sold more than 15 million copies and has more than 1.7 million active players.

The success of Baldur’s Gate 3 shows that indie PvE games based on older gameplay systems can also attain massive success, so there’s no need to limit your creativity.

Even its visual presentation is reminiscent of old-school dungeon crawlers, with the four party members’ faces and HP totals, menu of actions they can take (essentially still attack/defend/magic), and turn-based combat with manually controlled turns:

Once you’ve considered all of this and figured out what kind of PvE game you want to make, you’ll need to know how.

Here’s how to make a PvE game

Here’s the typical game development process for making most games (including PvE): 

1. Ideation – Brainstorming the core concept and gameplay.
2. Prototyping – Building a basic, playable version to test ideas.
3. Pre-production – Planning and designing the full game experience.
4. Production – Creating the game’s assets and code.
5. Post-production – Post-release supports, updates, marketing, etc.

There’s no one-size-fits-all method for designing every kind of PvE game, but you can tailor the steps above to the one you’re making.

Before you start actually developing the game, though, there’s one more critical step: learning more about different gamer types and their psychology!

3 PvE user profiles to help understand your audience

It’s challenging to narrow down the overall gamer types with such a broad topic as PvE, but Newzoo’s 2022 gamer segmentation report is a helpful place to start.

1. The Solo Gamer: There’s a lot of information on these types of players, but here’s a quick summary:

• 30 years old, on average
• Usually male (62%)
• Prefer single-player games

This Solo Gamer player profile from Newzoo offers a detailed look into this player type:

Most Solo Gamers want to play games with interesting storylines, explore the game world, and overcome challenges with critical thinking.

So, it makes sense since their most-played genre is adventure.

This is exemplified by nearly any Zelda game, each of which requires using specific items or interactable parts of the environment to solve puzzles. They also conspicuously lack PvP.

Here’s one way to solve this puzzle in Tears of the Kingdom (but since it has arguably the series’ most versatile toolkit, there’s almost always more than one solution):

I can’t list every game with a single-player mode here, but this will apply to action-adventure games, metroidvanias, etc.

That said, Solo Gamers only make up about 5% of gaming enthusiasts. The more casual gaming crowd, on the other hand…

2. Time Fillers: This gamer type represents 25% of players, and more than 15% of the group are aged 51-65.

They don’t care much for watching live streams or socializing; Time Fillers just want something to do when they’re bored.

This is what Newzoo’s Time Filler player profile looks like:

That’s why puzzle games (e.g. Tetris) tend to be their favorite. These low-commitment games let players jump in and out quickly, but also track long-term progress—giving Time Fillers flexibility while still rewarding their achievements.

Their mobile phone is usually their preferred gaming device. With more than 3 billion people playing smartphone games, catering to the needs of Time Fillers can quickly draw attention (and new players) to your game.

Candy Crush Saga’s revenue and usage statistics show just how profitable these kinds of games can be:

Here’s a guide on how to make a mobile game, in case you want to tap into this market.

3. The Ultimate Gamer: Only 4% of enthusiasts fall into this category.

These dedicated players tend to prefer PvP shooters, battle royale, and strategy games, and are more social than most other user profiles.

Here’s Newzoo’s visual breakdown of this player type:

They’re fine with spending a bit extra on a more powerful computer to get consistently higher frames per second (FPS) in games like Fortnite, or min-maxing their devices for raiding in WoW.

Most Ultimate Gamers also play co-op PvE games, but indie or solo developers may not be able to pull together enough development resources to make these from scratch.

A better starting point is to build on games with existing platforms.

For instance, Roblox has an existing player base, free servers and a vast community (areas like the one below are usually even more crowded)—so it’s realistic to deploy an online multiplayer experience here as a solo developer or small team:

Here’s a guide on how to build a Roblox game for multiplayer that’s fun and well-monetized.

FAQs

Is PvX a thing?

PvX combines aspects of PvE and PvP into one map, allowing players to fight human players as well as computer-controlled environments and NPCs (e.g. Ashes of Creation).

This is also sometimes called “player versus everything.” These games are still fairly rough in their development – but we’ve seen some explorations in this area, particular in extraction style games such as Dark and Darker, Skyveil and Supervive. 

Is player versus environment the same as player versus entity?

Another related term is “player versus entity”—this is also equivalent to player versus environment. (It really just boils down to whether the thing trying to kill your character is player-controlled or not.)

Hope that clears everything up!

I’ll be constantly updating this guide, so if you have any questions or feedback, or just want to offer your own perspective—please share in the comments below.