Arthur Tolmie: "I have spent a good twenty minutes thinking of how I can open this preview of Turtle Rock Studio’s Evolve. In one hand it’s a co-operative game that sees you work as part of a team against a formidable adversary. But on the other hand it is also a single player game that pitches you as a lone, ever-evolving monster attempting to at first survive and then to dominate.
The official blurb is that Evolve blends co-operative and competitive multiplayer experiences; a team of four hunters face off against a single evolving player controlled monster. Whilst this is an excellent and accurate description is misses one very important point - Evolve is different."
Back in 2016, Turtle Rock announced that support for its 4v1 monster-hunting shooter Evolve would end but fans wouldn't let it die.
From NME: "Evolve: Stage 2 had its multiplayer servers shut down back in 2018, but today players are once again able to matchmake and join peer-to-peer multiplayer games.
Several months ago, peer-to-peer functionality was lost for Evolve Legacy, which was the only way fans of the series could play with friends. Upon a multitude of players reaching out to publisher 2K, the issue was eventually fixed earlier in July. It seems 2K have gone a step further now, and reinstated peer-to-peer and matchmaking functionality for Evolve: Stage 2 after four years."
Evolve is an asymmetrical multiplayer experience born at the tail-end of the wrong era, in the multiplayer world.
Great idea but poorly executed and destined to fail from the begging. Only thing I’m grateful towards this game is that it’s the one that convinced me to never buy a game blind again.
Shadowrun for the Xbox 360/PC would of been a better example of a great online game that launched At the wrong time.