Evolve came out quite some time ago and was immediately faced with quite a bit of controversy. The 4v1 asymmetrical PvP game was anticipated by a whole lot of people, but when it came out it was plagued by extremely malicious DLC practices that made it lose favor with the online community. As counted by VG247, Evolve had $130 worth of optional DLC that wasn’t covered by its season pass. These DLC practices created tons of bad press for what was a relatively solid game and made Evolve effectively crash and burn.
To try and save the long-sinking ship that is Evolve, the team at Turtle Rock has launched Evolve: Stage 2 on the Steam marketplace today. On top of completely overhauling tons of features, the new version of the game fixes matchmaking issues, adds in a free weekly rotation of Hunters and Monsters, and – most importantly – turns Evolve into a free-to-play game.
Stage 2 is making every bit of content in the game free by earning in-game currency. Those who already owned a version of Evolve previously will be made “legacy” members, and given immediate access to everything they had already owned, along with access to “Legacy Evolve,” which comprises the now-defunct game modes of Defend, Nest, Rescue, and Evacuation. This new revitalization of Evolve should be giving a massive boost to a game that most people figured they’d never hear about again, and the huge amount of new features, balance tweaks, and general improvements brought to the game might just be enough to help Evolve once again stand on its own two feet.
While Stage 2 is currently only available for Steam users, Turtle Rock has expressed that they’re working on making the game free for users on Xbox One and Playstation 4 as well. If you’re a console gamer it’s only a matter of time before you can get your hands on Evolve without paying a dime for it. If you want to see the full list of tweaks being made to the game in Stage 2, you can go ahead and check out the (very lengthy) patch notes right here.
