For those of you who enjoyed the asymmetrical monster hunting goodness that was Evolve, but was discouraged by a lack of variety for a full priced game; there’s good news! Turtle Rock has announced that Evolve is going free-to-play.
Announced via Turtle Rock’s website, Co-Founders Chris Ashton & Phil Robb addressed many of the criticisms towards the game’s questionable launch, saying, “Then, when Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected. Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC ****storm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience.”
Ashton and Robb’s solution to this problem is to deliver fans an experience they’ve been asking for since the start. In addition to a massive game overhaul and re-working, Evolve will be entering a free-to-play beta only on PC.
They say, “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 [in the forum].”
For those who already bought the game, Ashton and Robb have you covered, saying “Anyone who owns classic Evolve will be given “Founder” status in the new free version, and all the content you already own comes with you to the new version. As long as we work on Evolve, we will show our appreciation for our committed fans and early adopters with gifts, rewards, and special access. Why? Because you believed like we did, and we will never forget that.”
While this may not excuse a lot of the blunders that came at Evolve’s launch: like it’s ludicrous amount of pre-order, day-one DLC, and special editions, so cluttered you needed a spreadsheet to manage it all. Or the ridiculous notion that one DLC character was being sold for $15, it is certainly a step in the right direction, and a great sign of faith on behalf of Turtle Rock. I for one felt a bit ripped-off after my initial purchase and it significantly hampered my further enjoyment of the game.
While there’s no word if the free-to-play model will make it to consoles, here’s hoping Turtle Rock makes good on it’s claims for everyone who purchased and wishes to enjoy Evolve.
