Turtle Rock Studios’ 4v1 shooter Evolve, which separates players into two teams consisting of soldiers and a lone monster, has gone fully free-to-play on PC as of today, the developer has announced. The news came as part of a post on the game’s official forums by co-founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb, which explains how the team decided to adopt the model due to a less-than-stellar launch and the so-called “DLC sh*tstorm that followed it.”
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 sh*tstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience.
We want that magic back and we aim to make it happen. We’ve made a lot of changes, improvements and additions to Evolve over the past year and we’ve got a lot more coming. In short, we’re giving this game a vigorous overhaul!
The pair then continue to explain how the transition will work, confirming that those who purchased the full game at the original price will be rewarded for their loyalty by way of additional rewards and a ‘Founder’ status, although it wasn’t conferred just what that will entail.
Making Evolve free on PC is going to be a process that takes time and a lot of hard work, but we believe in Evolve and we believe in you, our players and want to do what’s best for both!
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.
Ashton and Robb said there’s currently no promise of the same thing happening to the console versions of Evolve, but “should it prove successful,” then they’ll look into replicating the PC model. Turtle Rock is certainly making a daring move by making a change so drastic so long after release, but if it means the game will last just that little bit longer, then best of luck to them.