Andrew Gower confirms PvP for Brighter Shores, but it won’t be available at launch

Developer Fen Researcher’s CEO, best known for his work on the original RuneScape, Andrew Gower, has confirmed that while the company’s next game, Brighter Shores, will have PvP, it won’t be available at launch. When it does arrive, it’ll be optional and unique.

In a post on Twitter, Gower explained how Brighter Shores will be labeled as early access until PvP is added later down the line but didn’t give a timeline for how long that would take. He says this is because he wants the game to launch when the team originally planned to get it out to fans, Q3 2024, and doesn’t want them to have to wait any longer. He added that he has what he believes to be an interesting vision for what the game’s optional PvP could be.

To PvP or not to PvP

While Andrew Gower says PvP probably won’t be available in Brighter Shores at launch, it’s still an incredibly important feature that the team is striving to perfect and implement as soon as possible. I think it makes a lot of sense to introduce it after launch because the game boasts a “huge number of professions to try,” which would be overwhelming to someone like me if there was also an entire PvP side of the game to contend with.

The majority of your time in Brighter Shores will be spent engaging with each job and filling a role in the game’s world. For example, you might enjoy adventuring and gathering treasure or resources from various biomes, while someone else could really enjoy mining, smithing, and ultimately selling weapons and armor. How you spend your time is up to you.

Fitting PvP into a world like this will be tricky, but it’s been done before. There could be optional PvP worlds or PvP arenas, but we won’t know exactly what Gower has planned until we get more information or an update from him directly.

The key takeaway from what Gower has shared should be that PvP will be yet another layer of content in Brighter Shores. Once you’re used to the basics that this admittedly quite large-sounding world has to offer, then PvP will come along to change how you perceive each session.

PvP in games like RuneScape and even Destiny 2 require skill, but there’s always an element of min/maxing stats with the best armor and weapons. If Brighter Shores‘ PvP is similar, then it could require you to shift your focus to mining and smithing for better gear so you can win more battles than you lose.