In PIONER, you find yourself in a post-apocalyptic world where mutants roam the land. To survive, you will need to confront dangerous creatures and formidable bosses, such as the armored fire-breathing Hellbear, as well as engage in battles against other players. Developer GFAGames has shared more details about how PvE and PvP will work in their upcoming survival MMO.

PIONER is developed in Unreal Engine 4 with a team of 100 people. The game’s map is over 50 square kilometers and is split into two sections. One side of the island is where the story and PvE aspects take place, while on the right side, it is a free-for-all as PvP is enabled. This dividing line makes it so that if you do not wish to deal with players stealing your loot, you will not have to.

Great news for people who don’t want to interact with the missions and want to focus on ‌player-killing only: gear is not locked to the story, so you will be able to upgrade your equipment and keep on fighting. The main campaign can be completed solo. However, the same cannot be said if you want to beat it with your guildmates, as not every mission will work in co-op.

You will be able to purchase PIONER ‌on Windows and Linux later this year with a possible next-gen console release coming at another date. However, they are not planning to add cross-play as they fear this will be hard to balance in the PvP aspect. The game will feature microtransactions but the devs have stated they will be keeping these to cosmetics only. Post-launch they will be adding much more content to the island of Tartarus like new enemies, characters, weapons, and end-game activities. 

What do you think about the devs separating PvE and PvP into two separate areas? Let me know in the comments.