All Articles: Evolve

This Summer, Turtle Rock announced the PC version of Evolve would undergo a major metamorphosis to become Evolve: Stage 2. The struggling shooter became a free-to-play game overnight, and Turtle Rock continued to tweak the game while seeking feedback from the growing community.

Unfortunately, the developer has confirmed that 2K Games has decided not to renew their contract, and the future of Evolve now rests in the publisher’s hands. Writing on their Community Forum, Turtle Rock Co-Founder Chris “MacMan” Ashton had this to say:

Seems like the greater things you aspire to, the more time it takes. We had huge aspirations for Evolve, and while we got to spend five and a half awesome years on planet Shear with a ragtag group of Planet Tamers and fearsome Monsters, it still doesn’t feel like enough – we were hungry for more but unfortunately today is the last day that Turtle Rock Studios can work on Evolve.

While the split appears to be amicable (2K will continue to support Evolve’s servers “for the foreseeable future”), Community Manager Shane “Shaners” Meyer said that Turtle Rock “wanted to continue working on the project.”

To say goodbye to “their baby,” Turtle Rock plans to host a special livestream tomorrow, October 27, at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time) on Twitch.

Even though it sold several million copies, Evolve more or less disappeared from the public eye after its release in early 2015. A confusing (and pricey) DLC structure seems to have pushed away almost everyone that was enamored by the game after its 2014 debut at PAX East, or its subsequent pre-release showings at E3 or Gamescom.

But Turtle Rock wants to revitalize their 4v1 shooter, and they’re going to start by making Evolve a free-to-play game on the PC beginning tomorrow, July 7. In addition to rebalancing the Hunter classes and making improvements to the maps, Turtle Rock wrote on their Community Forum that they plan to use this “Beta” relaunch as a testing ground for weekly updates to Evolve:

Here’s how it’s going to work: We’re going to make Evolve free on PC as a Beta starting on July 7. This is going to allow us to hit our new server infrastructure really hard and we need your help testing. Stuff could break, and that’s our hope, because that will give us time to improve things as we go. We’ll parse out major Beta revisions, updates and features over a period of weeks and months — a plan we’re going to continually communicate here. This allows us to test new features and major changes to make our game more accessible and ever closer to the joy we saw when we first showed our baby to the world. Just as importantly, this Beta plan gives us the flexibility and time we need to keep fixing bugs and making Evolve more stable.

Players who purchased Evolve before it went free-to-play will be given “Founder” status and periodically receive “gifts, rewards, and special access” from Turtle Rock. And according to another post by Turtle Rock, the free-to-play “Beta” will start on the PC, but the goal is to bring to the PS4 and Xbox One as well.

Turtle Rock will host a huge livestream detailing the changes coming to Evolve on Twitch tomorrow at noon (Eastern Time).

A new Monster (Behemoth) and four new Hunters are now available to download in Turtle Rock’s 4v1 shooter, Evolve.

Behemoth is a massive rock beast that can also turn into a rolling ball of death to crush any Hunters that remain in his path. But the four new Hunters aren’t just going to lie down and die. The tattooed Torvald (Assault), enigmatic Crow (Trapper), psychotic Sunny (Support), and extraterrestrial Slim (Medic) all bring new weapons and abilities to the battle:

Torvald (Assault)
Punch through your enemies with the Assault character Torvald. His loadout includes a Mortar Cannon, Autofire Shotgun, and Shrapnel Grenades.

Crow (Trapper)
Ensnare your enemies with the Trapper character Crow. His loadout includes a Kinetic Long Rifle, Stasis Gun, and a Pet Batray.

Sunny (Support)
Give your teammates a boost with the Support character Sunny. Her loadout includes a Mininuke Grenade Launcher, Jetpack Booster, and a Shield Drone.

Slim (Medic)
Protect your fellow Hunters with the Medic character Slim. His loadout includes a Leech Gun, Spore Cloud Launcher, and Healing Drone.

Players looking to expand Evolve will find that these add-on characters don’t come cheap. Each Hunter has been priced at $7.49 apiece, while Behemoth carries a $14.99 price tag. A new trailer showcasing all five new additions to the game has been embedded above.

Turtle Rock and 2K Games launched Evolve on February 10 and they’ve been busy collecting statistics on all the Monster versus Hunter action since then. Through February 18, nearly six million rounds pf Evolve have been played with the Monster emerging victorious 51.9% of the time. While the Monsters have a slight advantage in total victories, a 52-48 ratio proves that Evolve is an incredibly well-balanced game.

All told, those six million matches tallied 58,461,472 total minutes of playtime with the shortest round lasting a Tyson-esque 60 seconds. The longest round clocked in at 43 minutes with the average sitting at nine minutes and 43 seconds.

Turtle Rock has produced a beautiful infographic depicting these stats and more (including the most popular Hunters and Evolve’s Twitch popularity). You can find it after the break. (more…)