Evolve

Turtle Rock’s upcoming first-person shooter, Evolve, is poised to be the biggest game of the year so far. With the release a mere week away, we’re now looking ahead to see whether or not Evolve can live up to the hype. Feel like you’re left in the dark about Evolve? This primer will get you up to speed in no time.

A new IP from the studio behind Left 4 Dead, Evolve pits four players against one in an asymmetric multiplayer experience. While that might not seem like a fair fight, the catch is that the solo player controls a massive monster, while the team of four is populated by human (or humanoid) characters. The end result is a boss battle dynamic where one player gets to control the boss as it slowly grows in power.

Originally slated for release in October 2014, 2K and Turtle Rock pushed the launch date into 2015 in order to polish the game. After a mass exodus into 2015 that included Batman: Arkham Knight, Dying Light, and The Order: 1886, this year’s release schedule is already crowded with big names vying for attention. While Evolve’s presence at expos like PAX and E3 were undeniably exciting, it will take a truly exemplary experience for this game to shine that bright at home.

Continue on to the next page for more details about the studio and the story of the upcoming shooter. 

The Developer

Founded in 2002, the early years of Turtle Rock Studios were spent helping Valve work on the popular Counter-Strike series. After working on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, Turtle Rock Studios was acquired by Valve in 2008, and together they launched Left 4 Dead, a post-apocalyptic game that helped propel the games industry into an undead craze that continues to this day.

Following the success of Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock took its multiplayer pedigree and re-launched as an independent developer. Valve continued the Left 4 Dead franchise without the studio, but worked with Turtle Rock to create downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2. 

Turtle Rock was set to publish Evolve with THQ, but when the publisher filed for bankruptcy in 2012, Take-Two Interactive purchased the property. Now, under Take-Two and 2K Games, Evolve is finally ready to see the light of day.

The Story

For multiplayer-focused shooters, story is sometimes an afterthought, but Evolve’s fiction is interesting. Set in the distant future, Evolve takes place during an age of exploration for humanity. 

We have begun exploring our galaxy and establishing colonies on new frontier planets. The player-controlled hunters are tasked with taming the wildlife of the planets and making the worlds more livable for the fledgling colonies.

Shear is the chief colonial planet, and now, 50 years after the establishment of the settlement, bigger, more ferocious monsters have begun appearing. With any real help years away, the colonists are stranded. Annihilation seems all but certain. The hunters may be in over their head, but they’re the only thing that stands between these mammoth monsters and the colonies. 

Turtle Rock wants to deliver a story that isn’t necessarily the deepest you’ve experienced, but one that will stick with you after you’ve stopped playing. “We’re not a studio that focuses very heavily on a big, complicated story,” studio co-founder Phil Robb told us in 2014. “We want the stories to be the s--- you're talking about the next day after a long night of playing the game.”

Click on over to the next page and we’ll introduce you to the different classes that will be duking it out.

The cast of characters is colorful. Shipping with a total of twelve hunters across four classes and three monsters, Evolve offers players the opportunity to play each class with the style they choose. The hunters are split into four distinct classes: assault, support, trapper, and medic. 

The Hunters

As a member of the assault class, you’re tasked with inflicting as much damage as efficiently as possible. Assault hunters are given strong weapons and shields to help keep them alive and inflict pain upon the monster. 

The support class is designed to assist the other hunters as they work to bring down the beast. Support teammates can look forward to using special abilities like team cloaking, ability-boosting beams, and even tagging mechanisms that allow for easier monster tracking.

Trappers are all about making the monsters more contained. Members of this class are given weapons that slow the monster’s progress, or are able to deploy a temporary bubble that can lock the monster in a small area, giving the team a better chance to take it down.

Medics are often the unsung heroes of class-based multiplayer shooters, but that’s not the case in Evolve. In fact, some of the medics are even able to deal pretty heavy damage themselves, with characters like Caira possessing napalm grenades. Despite this, the medic’s primary duty is to keep his or her teammates alive using items such as healing grenades and the ability to be more mobile than other hunters.

The Monsters

While the hunters are more abundant, the star of the show is obviously the monster. The monster class is populated by three unique beasts, each with its own set of abilities. Goliath is a hulking creature that can throw giant rocks and breathe fire, while Kraken is much more agile and deals electrical damage primarily from a distance. The third and final monster shipping with Evolve is Wraith, a stealthy, close-range beast that is able to teleport, create decoys of itself, and quickly abduct hunters.

One of the core mechanics of Evolve is that the monsters transform over the course of a match. While this idea is more central in some modes than others, the difference between a stage-one monster and a stage-three monster is striking, as stage-three monsters are much more imposing and possess higher level abilities.

Turtle Rock has also announced a fourth monster, which is offered as an incentive to pre-order Evolve. Behemoth is able to deploy mortar-like lava bombs at hunters or pull opponents closer using its tongue, giving it the ability to deal massive melee damage. In addition to being a pre-order incentive, Behemoth is also offered as paid downloadable content. Turtle Rock has also mentioned a fifth playable monster, but no details have been released on this future DLC creature.

Still not sure exactly how the game works? On the next page, we’ll talk you the different modes you’ll get to play with.

Evolve creates a unique asymmetrical multiplayer experience. The team of four hunters working together to bring down one intimidating leviathan is a fresh take on the first-person shooter genre.

The Gameplay

Following an airdrop into the hot zone, the hunters must work efficiently to track down the monster. During this pursuit, they’ll encounter wildlife and other less imposing monsters that grant special power-ups and buffs if they can take them down. The pursuit can be lengthy, but the build-up is worth it when the final confrontation nears.

All the while, the monster is traveling across the map, evading the hunters for as long as possible. The monster encounters the same wildlife that the hunters do, only the other creatures in the world act as food for the beast, fueling its evolution. When a monster gains enough nutrition, it is able to evolve to the next stage, becoming more powerful and developing its ability repertoire.

Once the two sides finally meet, all bets are off and it becomes a fight for survival. Not unlike Left 4 Dead’s setup, the teamwork that is required to effectively fight the monster prevents the lone wolf mentality seen in other shooters. The monster can employ a number of different approaches when dealing with the hunters, playing on the idea of fight vs. flight when it comes to surviving the attack and accomplishing the objective.

The Modes

Hunt mode serves as the base of the Evolve experience. In hunt mode, the hunters look to destroy the monster before it destroys them. The monster can also claim victory by evolving to its third and final stage and completing an objective that is located somewhere on the map.

In nest mode, hunters are given specific locations on the map where they are to destroy monster eggs. The monster, tasked with defending the nests, must take out the hunters before they can destroy its offspring. The monster can use all of its hunt mode tactics, while also having the option to sacrifice one of its eggs to spawn an A.I.-controlled first-stage monster.

The tables are turned in rescue mode, which sees groups of colonists spread randomly throughout the map. The hunters’ mission is to reach these colonist groups and extract them, while the monster is looking to kill as many of them as possible. The final outcome is based on how many colonists survive versus how many are claimed by the monster, with each successive group containing more colonists than the last – Turtle Rock wants the match to remain competitive until the very end.

Evacuation mode brings all of these different modes into one connected five-round campaign, with events happening in the prior round affecting the next one. Round one kicks off the campaign with hunt mode, with the next three rounds moving forward onto different modes and locations from there, making sure the same ones aren’t played back-to-back. For the fifth round, Evolve shifts to defend mode, with the monster on the offensive.

In defend, the hunters work to escort civilians onto a transport vehicle, while the monster must try to break through defenses and destroy the fuel pump of the vehicle. 

The chief concern for many players when Turtle Rock announced Evolve was that there wouldn’t be enough diversity in the gameplay to keep it interesting for a long time. With so many different takes and variations on the concept, however, Evolve could provide players with several creative modes that give the game a long shelf life.

On the next page, we look ahead at what the future could hold for Evolve.

Looking Ahead

As of now, Evolve is looking like a pretty safe bet to be a popular release in the early stages of 2015. The creators have shown they know how to craft a strong multiplayer experience without following the previously established blueprints for success.

The ever-changing predator and prey dynamic is an interesting twist on the genre, and the number of variations on that concept shows there is depth hidden beneath the deceptively simple concept. When combined with an elaborate DLC plan and an intentional focus on community, it’s clear that Turtle Rock has set its sights on delivering longevity through Evolve.

Though all of the downloadable maps for Evolve will be offered to players free of charge, Turtle Rock’s approach to relying on downloadable content has landed it on the receiving end of criticism from the fan base. The criticism accuses Turtle Rock of withholding content from the shipped version of the game in order to charge a premium for it to appear as DLC. Turtle Rock responded to these claims by explaining that anything being released as DLC is outside of the scope of the original game and would otherwise go to waste without the budget that paid DLC provides. In addition, concerns exist regarding certain pre-order promotions that allow for players to gain certain unlocks without having to play as much as other players.

The season pass for downloadable content carries a $25 price tag, but can also be bundled in with the purchase of the deluxe version of the game for a discount. The season pass contains four new hunters and a new skin for each of the existing monsters. Any downloadable content beyond those, such as extra monsters, hunters, or modes, will be extra.

Evolve has been a hit at expos, and its open beta showed that Turtle Rock has done an exceptional job of balancing the two sides. Games such as this live and die by the community they attract, though. If Evolve ends up a big hit and grabs a massive audience, it could prove to be a major comeback for the studio.

Evolve was officially revealed through the February 2014 cover of Game Informer. It was there that we announced several of the first details known about the title. For more coverage on Turtle Rock’s upcoming shooter, head over to our hub for Evolve by clicking on the banner below.