Evolve Updates Stop As Turtle Rock Move On
Servers still up
Yesterday was the very last day Turtle Rock will work on Evolve [official site]. The servers will still run but no future updates are planned. Despite a relaunch as free-to-play in July, it looks like it simply wasn't popular enough to justify the cost of them working more on the 4v1 monsterhunting FPS. It wasn't their call to make - that'd be publishers 2K - and so it goes.
Turtle Rock co-founders Phil Robb and Chris Ashton said in yesterday's announcement that "we were hungry for more but unfortunately today is the last day that Turtle Rock Studios can work on Evolve." They continue:
"This is the life of AAA game developers who aren't self-funded and don’t own their own IP. We don’t get to make the call. We all know that going in but we still sign the dotted line because we love what we do."
As this post is Turtle Rock saying goodbye rather than 2K explaining their decision, let's make an informed guess. Following the free-to-play launch, Turtle Rock said in September:
"Looking back on July and August we can proudly say things went well. Now, in September and October, we have a new challenge. We need to prove that Evolve Stage 2 can become a profitable and self-sustaining free-to-play game."
Ah. That'd likely be the problem.
2K assure players that though "no future updates are currently planned", Evolve's servers will stay up "for the foreseeable future". They publishers said in 2015 that Evolve might gain a spot in their permanent franchise lineup for the full 'endless sequels' treatment but ah, this makes that look less likely.
If you never played Evolve, I'll briefly explain: it's a class-based 4v1 FPS with four hunters trying to track and kill a hulking great monster. Check out Alec's two-part Wot I Think for more. I really dug the idea myself but never found a group of friends who were all into it and I didn't much fancy playing a cooperative-ish game on my tod. How about you, gang?