Most multiplayer games can come with either a player versus environment mode (PvE) or player versus player mode (PvP). More often than not, players can choose to partake in either game mode, freely switching from one to the other based on needs or what they like best. It has been mere days since the release of Hood: Outlaws and Legends, an innovative medieval fantasy multiplayer title that allows gamers to choose their outlaw and try to become legends by successfully completing heists at the expenses of the State.

The way Hood: Outlaws and Legends contextualizes this in gameplay is by having a single game mode that is both PvP and PvE; two teams of players competing in order to get the riches first, while also having to deal with NPCs like guards and the dreaded Sheriff. Hood is not the very first game to introduce this hybrid mechanic, with other titles before it that introduced "PvPvE" modes way before Sumo Digital's new IP. One of such games is Hunt: Showdown, which was coincidentally also the game that inspired Hood in the first place.

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PvPvE in Hunt: Showdown and Hood: Outlaws and Legends

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Hunt: Showdown is a multiplayer FPS in which gamers are bounty hunters, seeking to kill a mythical creature made of pure evil, willing to feast on the hunters' flesh and devour their soul. It is fundamentally a PvPvE game where players should be wary of other bounty hunters, as they too are looking for the same prey, and thus some of them may end up engaging in a combat with other players before they kill the AI-controlled enemies.

This game mode is aptly called "Bounty Hunt," and killing the boss means obtaining the bounty, but the player or team that successfully achieves that is also tasked with surviving until they reach an extraction point. This supports up to 12 players in a single run, with teams made of up to three bounty hunters. Death in Hunt: Showdown means that the players loses the bounty and all the gear they had at the time of death, making the decision about which weapons to carry over into every mission a tough one.

Hood's game mode is not too dissimilar, in the sense that both teams are tasked with stealing the Sheriff's key, open the vault, and steal the treasure. Stealing the key and opening the vault is something that only needs to occur once, and while it is beneficial to do both things, it's ok to let the enemy team be the first to access the treasure and then kill them to steal it. There are many strategic elements in Hood, and it requires players to survive through the extraction process for the riches.

After the vault is open, though, the Sheriff becomes a force to be reckoned with and he can kill players in one blow, while he cannot be killed, just temporarily knocked out. Then there's guards and other players, all trying to stop the team carrying the treasure from effectively extracting it, and as such, guards can be exploited as circumstantial allies by the enemy team. As for progression in Hood, the winning players then gets to distribute the riches via the Scales of Justice and decide how much of it goes into their pocket and how much to the poor, like in the tales of Robin Hood.

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Destiny 2's Approach to PvPvE: Gambit, Ranks, and Infamy

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Gambit is a game mode that was introduced to Destiny 2 alongside the Forsaken expansion, and the main NPC here is The Drifter, a rogue Guardian. In Gambit, players are divided into two competing teams of four Guardians each, and the objective is to kill waves of enemies to collect "Motes." These motes are then cashed in at the central bank in each team's map.

Banking motes has a twofold purpose: They can be stashed in order to get to 100 and summon a Primeval boss that must be killed to win the round, and cashing in motes also sends blockers to the enemy team's arena. Depositing five motes sends a small blocker, 10 of them sends a medium blocker, and 15 sends a large blocker. When 25 motes are banked, an allied player can go over to the enemy team's map, invading it in the form of a red specter with several buffs on to make the Guardian even more deadly. If the invaded team has summoned the Primeval, then the boss heals a big chunk of its health pool whenever the invading Guardian scores a kill.

Also, all Guardians killed either by AI-controlled enemies or other players, drop their motes on death with the catch that they disappear after a short amount of time. Furthermore, whenever blockers are sent over from the enemy team, players cannot deposit motes unless all blockers are killed, making staying alive even more crucial.

As for progress, Destiny 2's Gambit comes with Ranks. This system is called Infamy, and players get Infamy points whenever they complete a Gambit match (with wins being a source of more points than losses) or any bounty from The Drifter. Ranking up awards players with a Gambit engram, and when reaching max rank Guardians can choose to reset their Infamy to earn even better rewards and start progression all over.

Other Games With Hybrid PvP and PvE Modes

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Destiny 2, Hood, and Hunt are not the only games out there with PvPvE modes, of course. Noteworthy mentions are Escape from Tarkov, Ark, and DayZ. In DayZ players have to survive hordes of infected while trying to get enough water, food, medicine, and weapons. Other players are not always allies, and they may decide to attack each other to steal their resources.

Escape from Tarkov is similar, but it is more focused on the PvP aspect, with PvE being limited to either single-player offline mode or AI-controlled Scavengers. EFT is not too dissimilar from Hood and Hunt as well, and that's because of its extraction system to get loot. In Ark: Survival Evolved players have to fight off dinosaurs and possibly tame them, but they can also be attacked by other players or tribes.

Hood: Outlaws and Legends is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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