OvenSmash Director Thinks PvP Shouldn't Only Be for Hardcore Players

PvP gaming has always carried with it a certain reputation. For many casual gamers, that space is reserved for games that aren’t always inviting and are instead, more often than not, rather intimidating, as they’re dominated by skill gaps and players who have far more time to devote to one game than other players might. And that perception has only grown stronger as competitive games continue to evolve, generally rewarding commitment at the expense of accessibility. But what happens when a series like CookieRun, known for its charm and approachability, steps into the competitive arena and tries to rethink what it can feel like? It seems that CookieRun: OvenSmash intends to do just that, in order to give players of diverse preferences a shot at feeling like they’re actually good at a PvP game.

GameRant recently interviewed CookieRun: OvenSmash game director WonYoung Lee about the challenges of bringing the long-running CookieRun franchise into a real-time PvP environment. As Devsisters brings the IP into a new genre with fast-paced competitive battles and multiple modes built around short matches, Lee offered some insight into how the team is approaching competition in a way that aligns with the series’ identity while still embracing the intensity that PvP so often demands.

CookieRun: OvenSmash Wants to Make PvP More Inviting

One of the biggest struggles with moving a welcoming, fun-filled IP like CookieRun into the intense space that is PvP gaming is trying to maintain a balance between identity and competition. Taking it all into a battle arena format brings with it expectations that don’t always line up with what players associate with CookieRun, especially when the fun of PvP tends to boil down to the player’s skill. For WonYoung Lee, the challenge wasn’t just about making a competitive game with OvenSmash, but figuring out how that competition could still feel like it belonged within the CookieRun universe:

“We started off with the CookieRun IP, and it’s a new genre, the battle arena genre, so it can be fierce. But how do we make it CookieRun? How do we keep the style of CookieRun while making it a fierce competition? And how do we evolve CookieRun into a PVP game? That’s what we focused on mostly.”

But developers can’t just hope to succeed if all they’ve done is slap their own IP on top of someone else’s idea, and at first glance, it’s easy to think CookieRun: OvenSmash is doing just that. Naturally, the upcoming mobile title has been compared to other battle arena games like Supercell’s Brawl Stars, and it’s easy to see why. The bright, stylized characters, the quick matches, the hero-based design, and the team-based PvP focus all reinforce those comparisons. However, Devsister’s goal with OvenSmash was never to compete with other games—or any one game like Brawl Stars, in particular—and has instead “given a lot of thought into why people would like this specific game.”

In the end, that comes down to honing in on what ultimately makes CookieRun: OvenSmash unique among other PvP games. Again, games in this space often rely heavily on the player’s skill, which can create a barrier for those who aren’t ready or willing to commit to that level of gameplay or the time it takes to get there. Lee pointed to that gap as one of the biggest things the team wanted to address when thinking about what makes CookieRun: OvenSmash feel different:

“I think that when there are more advanced players, more experienced players, PvP games become about losing to those players. Little things can have a snowballing effect, and those elements can make the game boring. The difference in skill can make a big difference. If the skill ceiling is too high, it can be overwhelming for some users. So, we focused on luck too, not just the user’s skill, so even if the user is not skilled, they can use different modes and gimmicks in the game, and they can still overcome the skill difference.”

What makes CookieRun: OvenSmash stand out, then, is how it redefines the idea of fairness in PvP gameplay. Instead of treating balance as something that strictly rewards the best players, CookieRun: OvenSmash seems to explore ways to keep players engaged even when their skill levels don’t perfectly align with others. That doesn’t automatically trivialize the skill ceiling, but it does introduce enough variation that outcomes don’t always feel like they’ve been decided before a match even begins.

That idea feeds directly into how Lee views the game’s potential place in the genre. Rather than simply competing with established PvP games, there’s a sense that CookieRun: OvenSmash is trying to rethink who those games are actually built for in the first place:

“Yes, I think that’s definitely possible. I really like the PVP genre itself. When I play PVP games, it can still be stressful. It’s a lot of fun, but some matches are unsatisfactory, so I find it hard to play it for a long time. I think that’s because players who stay in PVP games are really hardcore users. And we thought non-hardcore players should be able to enjoy PVP games too. We thought maybe we could make those two different types of user come together—new players and hardcore players. We wanted to go further than others and make sure we become a new standard in the PVP genre.”

Bringing those two audiences together is where the idea becomes more ambitious. PvP games tend to narrow over time, with experienced players raising the skill floor in ways that make it harder for others to stick around. If CookieRun: OvenSmash can maintain a space where both groups feel like they belong, it could end up doing more than just carving out a niche and possibly even change how accessibility is approached in competitive games.

For Lee, that vision is ultimately rooted in something much simpler than genre expectations or design philosophy. As he put it, “I want many players to come to our game, invite their friends, and I just don’t want them to end after playing a brief match. I want this game to be something that people would want to invite others to and want to play with their friends.” In order to accomplish that, Devsisters believes CookieRun: OvenSmash needs to be a game for everyone, and that’s where a little accessibility can go a long way.