Evolve

Evolve's self-proclaimed Big Alpha is now underway for the Xbox One and PC*, and we hunted and got hunted in the game's appropriately named Hunt mode.

Being an alpha, naturally not all the game's modes or features are enabled, but the core experience is there: You take on the role of one of four hunters or the single monster. The goal here is simple: take down the monster if you're a hunter, and if you're the monster you must survive the round or alternately kill all the hunters or take down the map's power relay.

Picking who you want to be is easy: You can select to always be a specific class of hunter or the monster, or you can rank the five roles in order of most- to least-desirable. From here the game will try to match to your preferences. Of course, you can also state that you have no preference in which role you want to play. The menu lists an option to invite your friends, but as of the time of this writing, it's disabled.

While the weapon loadout for the hunters is fixed to each character, the monster gets to put three points in four abilities. For Goliath, these are: fire breath, leap smash, rock throw, or charge. You can put all three points into one ability and instantly max it out, or spread them around to unlock multiple abilities. Both the monster and the hunters also get to choose which perk they want to bring into battle (more on these below). These include a greater leaping ability, the ability to do more damage, etc.

Watch our Test Chamber above for Evolve's Big Alpha.

THE HUNT IS ON

You'll have to wait through some lengthy load times, but once the game starts, there's no time to spare. If you're the monster, you should start eating the indigenous animals as soon as you can to start building toward the next of three evolutionary stages. If you're a hunter, it's best to get moving as soon as possible by following Maggie's pet trapjaw, Daisy. If you can engage the monster while it's in its first or even second evolutionary stage, you'll have an advantage.

In our time with the Evolve alpha, the game was a nice mixture of different play styles depending on the players involved. Sometimes we were hunting for long stretches, hot on the heels of the monster, which we knew was getting stronger and stronger. Other times it was a back-and-forth of attacking and damaging the monster until our last hunter had to retreat and lick his or her wounds until the rest of the party arrived back from the dead via the dropship. Sometimes there was a final standoff at a power relay that the fully evolved monster can destroy to win the game, and other times team coordination overpowered the monster.

All alone, playing as the monster is naturally a different experience. The urgency is still there, but it's different. You can press B on the Xbox One (circle on the PS4) to go into stealth mode, which helps you stalk both animals and hunters while keeping quiet to help shake your pursuers. Also helpful is the the right analog stick; depressing it sends out a smell "radar" all around you that highlights the locations of hunters and animals. While you need time and space to eat animals and evolve into your next stage (which gives you more points to put into your abilities), you can also ambush unaware hunters or single-out a hunter who's strayed from the pack.

Working together as a team is the hunters' greatest strength. Each one has four weapons or pieces of equipment, and using them in conjunction is key. The trapper's mobile arena puts down an area dome that traps everyone inside – important in isolating the monster once you find it and preventing it from escaping. Both the medic and support characters have projection equipment that allows them to heal or shield, respectively, another hunter from afar. The medic also has the ability to mark weak spots on its body and a tranquilizer gun that slows it down and tags it so it's easier to track.

Moving together with the single purpose of hunting the monster is also important. Straying party members are more likely to get caught up in battles with the indigenous creatures (some of which are powerful in their own right) and thus sidetrack the rest of the group when they inevitably need help to survive their animal encounter. Also, hunters who explore on their own are more likely to confuse other hunters and pull them into dead ends and away from the monster's trail. You can do your part in helping keep everyone together by deploying markers by pressing down the right analog stick.

THE AFTERMATH

Once the round is done you'll get to see your progress as both the character you're playing and your overall player account. Using your weapons and monster abilities progresses those individual items and abilities and also levels up your overall player level. So if you're the trapper and you use your harpoon traps to anchor the monster in place, you'll progress that weapon's mastery and earn points to your overall player level. Mastering three pieces of equipment unlocks the next character in that hunter class (who have their own weapon and equipment), and mastering five monster abilities unlocks the Kraken for play.

Leveling up your player account also rewards you with new perks to choose from before matches. One that I liked, but which doesn't sound super-useful is the perk that lets you switch your weapons 10 percent faster. This is useful if you're the support class, for example, when you're juggling lots of different equipment trying to help everyone out. There are also separate perks that hunters and the monster can get in the environment from killing indigenous animals, which last for the duration of the match.

The post-battle screen is also helpful because it shows you a simplified top-down replay of the match, letting you see not only where everyone was during the hunt via colored icons, but when the monster hit its evolution stages. It's useful in seeing where you went right or wrong as well as other players' behaviors.

The next round in the game will start automatically with the same players, and everyone's roles will once again be assigned according to any character preferences that have been set. If you want to play with some different gamers, you can also back out and jump into a new match with different people.

Evolve hits stores on February 10 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. For a look at a match versus the Kraken, be sure to check out this video.

*The PS4 version of the alpha has been postponed.