Evolve Revisited

Evolve was one of the most disappointing releases of its generation and one where I had sadly jumped all in on day one. Releasing in early 2015 the game got mixed reviews and wasn't strongly supported by the community. The game was developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by 2k Games, I had high hopes for this game considering Turtle's previous work on Left 4 Dead. Evolve was supposed to carry a similar style so I went all in on the premium version as did one of my friends so we could play together. Instead of featuring dynamic campaigns it was a series of small cat and mouse matches. This created a shallow feeling for gameplay with little reason to keep enjoying it so we dropped the game completely.

There was also an issue with the season pass not including all additional content, this created a sour feeling towards it and this made us leave it behind for good. The game released on all platforms of the time including Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC with it eventually becoming free to play on PC which didn't really save it at all. The entire experience was based on cooperative play where four hunters would be tasked with taking down a monster. Each of these roles is taken by a player creating some interesting pvp scenarios yet only as exciting as the players you're working with and against. As a monster I could roll through teams by eating quickly whereas my hunter teams were usually weak.


It was still generally a fun time as we'd work on tracking and then attacking this crazy monster. I typically played as a medic since that's my usual gaming role and it was intense. If played properly each role can be critical at dealing damage against the monster with the trapper and medic being key. The medic could not only heal the hunters, but also slow the monster considerably. The trapper was also important for finding the creature and then holding it one spot so everyone could annihilate it quickly. This all worked out fine unless someone on the team didn't stick with the group and it could all fall apart.

The characters were also interesting with a large roster being available for each role. I particularly loved their pre-battle chatter finding it more interesting than what they were about to do. It might have been nice to see some story elements to the game as the while solid, Evolve felt too light on content. The few modes didn't help at all and if you didn't like the hunting aspect than there was no point in playing it at all. I like the content, it can be fun though to see it used again the concept would have be evolved upon.

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