What do Marathon and The Lord of the Rings have to do with each other? PvPvE gameplay, apparently

I would have gone with you to the end, into the very swamps of Dire Marsh

Marathon and The Lord of the Rings are diametrically opposed narratively, aesthetically, and functionally, yet they have been paired together to underscore a point about the former's relationship to PvPvE gameplay. No, it's not a leap I would have made either, but game director Joe Ziegler did, so let's have a listen to what he had to say about it all.

Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar, Ziegler explained that "a lot of great game experiences" ultimately come down to the "empowering feeling that you are in control to make a lot of decisions and deal with those consequences, learn from them, grow better as you encounter new decisions to make." Talking about extraction shooters specifically, Ziegler says he thinks the "space between PVP and PVE is sort of the golden line that drives experiences like that."

For him, PvE offers a "baseline of challenge" that grounds you in "a predictable world with rules and behaviors you can understand." But in turn, the PvP aspect "pushes you to adapt to the whim and unexpected thoughts of other players." This is where the comparison to Tolkien's classic comes into play: "I like to think of classic stories of adventure like The Lord of the Rings when thinking about games like this, where you can imagine the journey of Frodo and the Fellowship would have been way less interesting and suspenseful if all they encountered was dangerous wildlife on the way to Mount Doom and didn’t have other enemies out there unpredictably trying to steal the ring or end their journey."

The initial tonal difference in the two worlds may have thrown me off, but it is a fair assessment. Marathon as it exists now without the random encounters that are other people would certainly feel quite stale after a while. Jeremy's framing of the shooter as essentially multiplayer Alien: Isolation continues to feel quite apt. Now I am left wondering whether Marathon could do with a magical/alien ring situation, though I suppose it would be a bit useless for Assassin.