Man versus Monster. It’s the classic age-old tale going all the way back to myths and legends. However, never has a video game more captured this in such a distilled form as developer Turtle Rock’s latest game Evolve. Evolve is certainly a great time, but sadly cannot live up to the legends of yore.
Evolve gets together a group of five players and breaks them up into two teams. One team is composed of four players, and they take on the role of a group of four humans, called Hunters. The other player is on a team alone, but is playing the role of the monster. While there are a few variants, each game typically devolves into what team can kill the other off first.
As of right now, there are three different monsters for players to pick from. Each monster, the classic brute Goliath, the flying Cthulhu-like Kraken, and the creepy Wraith, comes with four different attacks, allowing players to customize to their playstyle. There are also three different human characters for the four roles of Hunters (Trapper, Assault, Medic and Support), making a total of 12 different human characters available to play.
One of the best parts of Evolve is how different each character feels, even if they are in the same class. The healer, for example, is played either by Val, Lazarus or Caira. While I didn’t care much for Val and her heavy sniper rifle, I loved playing as Lazarus with his reviving glove and faster sniper.
Unfortunately, these extra characters are locked away behind a somewhat archaic leveling system. To unlock the next character for any player, that player must first complete a series of challenges based on the first character. Just picking up Evolve for the first time means that you will only have one character to choose from for any given role. That character must then be played multiple times to level up all of the required weapons.
Some may see this as a cool way to give players a reason to focus on certain characters, but it also means that you will have to drag yourself through round after round of playing as a character you don’t like just to see if the next one is any better. Personally, I didn’t like playing as the Goliath monster, but seeing as how he was the only one I could use out of the three available, I was forced to play as him again and again until I finally passed the requirements needed to unlock the Kraken.
What’s worse is that some of these requirements are strange or difficult. Take the medic Lazarus for example. In order to unlock the last medic, you have to play as Lazarus. One of his objectives is to revive fallen teammates with your magical healing glove. I would play multiple games where my teammates would revive each other instead, leaving me no opportunities to even use the glove. When the round ended, I got no reward for playing and would have to play even more in the hopes that I could have the opportunity to use my gear.
Outside of strange dealings with characters and unlocks, Evolve is a really great first-person experience when things are working right. A team of four Hunter players all working together to bring down a massive beast is a really rewarding experience, especially when each role is so vital to the process. Having the Trapper catch the monster in a domed trap, then having the Assault and Support rain down hell from the skies, or swooping in as the medic and reviving someone at the last second is incredibly satisfying.
Some matches can get bogged down if you find yourself playing against a monster that really knows what they are doing though. Some players have an amazing ability as the monster to never be seen or caught, meaning that humans will find themselves running around for anywhere from 10-20 minutes until they get pounced on by a monster who is now a much bigger threat.
Similarly, playing as the monster is either frustrating or fun depending on how you can manage it. If you are skilled enough to sneak around and feast on wildlife until you level yourself up to full power, you’re going to have a blast destroying the humans. If you’re like me and somehow always get caught in the first two minutes of starting, then get gunned down because you have no time to level up, you’re going to end up frustrated.
A real highlight of Evolve is the Evacuation campaign. In this mode, a group of five players gets put into a string of five games set over the course of five in-game days. These games are sometimes slightly different than the standard “Hunt” mode, such as the “Rescue” mode, where humans must escort other NPC humans safely back to evacuation ships. There is also “Nest” mode, where humans must destroy all of the monster eggs in an area while the monster must defend them. The monster can also use an egg to hatch a minion to attack the humans as well. Winning a match will give the winning team a slight advantage in the next round, or give a disadvantage to their opponent. For example, if the humans win a round, the next round could feature less wildlife for the monster to prey on and get stronger off of.
Outside of gameplay, Evolve is fairly solid performance-wise. Matchmaking is normally a quick process with hopping into a game typically only taking a few seconds to a minute. The odd thing about matchmaking is if you are in an Xbox party with a friend and go to enter public matches, neither of you will be allowed to play as the monster character. This is normally fine with me, but then one time something bizarre happened. I was playing online with a friend and ended up getting put into the monster role in our game. We played and I lost horribly as predicted, but then it happened again, and a third time. I even had my preferences set to put me as the monster last of all possibilities, and I kept ending up in the monster role despite bots being required to fill out the human team. It was incredibly frustrating, to say the least.
Overall, Evolve can be a total blast. This is true especially when you have a group of friends to play with that you can all team up and work together to bring down a monster. Evolve can be played single-player, but it’s the exact same game with the other four roles that you didn’t pick being played by bots. Online play is really the way to go here. The odd way for Turtle Rock to hide away its characters and the occasional tech hiccup can put a big dampener on these experiences though, as well as the inevitable boring matches you may find yourself running into.
My last concern is that of longevity. While Evolve is fun, will there still be a community playing in six months? Will the gaming world enjoy this game for a blip of time before moving on to the next one or getting pulled back into an old favorite? Only time will tell here, but if Turtle Rock’s previous game Left 4 Dead has showed us anything, if you have a great core game players will stick around.
So what do you think? Do you agree with me that Evolve can be a ton of fun? Have you or will you be picking up a copy to play yourself? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
