Review: Absorbing ‘Evolve’ Is Fit to Survive

Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are tells us that inside everyone is a monster trying to get out. But unleashing that monster can be a messy prospect. What’s a stymied inner child to do?

Play Evolve, maybe.

The new shooter from Turtle Rock Studio, creators of the Left 4 Dead games, builds on its predecessors’ co-op multiplayer gameplay, but adds a fresh, asymmetric twist. Instead of a team of humans pitted against multiple zombies, this time it’s four hunters against one very large, very disgruntled monster. Which side you choose to play is up to you.

Though the humans-versus-monsters theme is similar to the classic Half-Life mod, Natural Selection, Evolve is very much its own gigantic beast. A few kinks aside, Evolve is a tight, absorbing mixture of cooperative and competitive gameplay, and seems likely to be the multiplayer shooter of choice for quite a while.

The action’s set on the far-flung world of Shear, where human colonization efforts are being hampered by unforeseen environmental factors – like 15-foot goliaths snacking on the pioneers. The solution? Send in a team of wisecracking monster-hunters to save the day, of course.

The setting lies somewhere between James Cameron’s Aliens and… James Cameron’s Avatar: grungy off-world colonies, incredibly hostile local fauna (the flora ain’t so nice, either), and working-class mercs whose personal style is midway between U.S. Marine and Hell’s Angel. The folks at Turtle Rock glide easily on the back of familiar sci-fi tropes, giving us just enough atmosphere and backstory that we can quickly forget about them and focus on the mayhem.

Evolve is all about the multiplayer; there’s no real single-player campaign, though it’s possible to play all the game modes with bots if you want some low-pressure training or just don’t like people very much.

There are four core game modes. The first and most basic is “Hunt,” in which the Hunters must track down and destroy the Monster as quickly as possible. The longer the Monster lives, feasting on other animals and gaining strength, the tougher it is to put down. “Nest” has the Monster trying to stop the Hunters from destroying its eggs, while “Rescue” is a sort of mirror image of that: this time it’s the Monster on the offensive, going after human survivors the Hunters are trying to shepherd to a safe extraction point. Finally there’s “Defend,” in which the Monster (accompanied in this case by some smaller Monsterlets) tries to destroy a number of generators the Hunters are protecting.

These modes can be played individually – a single session usually runs in the 15-20 minute range – or they can be strung together in a longer mini-campaign called “Evacuation.” Here, the outcome of each battle affects the next one. If the Hunters failed to stop the Monster from taking down a power plant, for example, the weather control might go awry, causing huge carnivorous plants to run amok in the next mission, making life that much harder for Team Humanity. There are tons of these modifiers, lending a needed boost of randomization to the game.

There’s plenty of variety in the roles you can play. Hunters can choose from one of four classes – Assault (the main damage dealer), Heal (keeping others alive with a sort of medical beam-gun), Support (cloaking your team when things get rough), and perhaps the most interesting, the Trapper. The Trapper has a critical role, erecting mobile force-field arenas to keep the Monster from running away. That’s right - if you’re on the human side, you actually want to stay up close and personal with this beast.

The gameplay is slower and more strategic than you might expect it to be. It’s not just a slugfest; a substantial chunk of life as a Hunter is spent simply trying to find the Monster. Conversely, if you’re playing the Monster, it’s often to your advantage to lie low, munching on smaller creatures until you can (ahem) evolve to subsequent stages that will strengthen you and give you more skill points to distribute into your various abilities. The Monster leaves footprints, except when it’s sneaking around; nearby birds will scatter at its presence, alerting the Hunters. There’s a lot of cat-and-mouse here; too much, maybe, for impatient gamers.

Evolve doesn’t give you all its toys right off the bat. There are three distinct characters per class (a total of 12), each with different weapon loadouts and abilities. Only four characters are open at first, requiring players to grind through matches to unlock more. Of the three currently playable Monsters, you only initially get access to the first, the Goliath. The other two – the slippery Kraken and the scary Wraith – require grinding as well. (There’s also DLC on the way this spring, including a fourth monster, the gigantic Behemoth.) There are player perks you need to unlock, too; the longer you play, the more options you’ll have to customize your characters.

All this content-gating is a bit annoying when you’ve paid full price for a game, but the progression curve isn’t too steep, and you can think of it as a sort of training mode that gives you some time to acclimate to the basics before adding more layers of choice and complexity.

This sort of thing requires a fine balancing act, and while Turtle Rock does an admirable job, it’s still a work in progress. Out of the box, the Wraith seems overpowered compared to the other monsters, its warping and ‘decoy’ abilities making it particularly tough to pin down. And all Hunter roles don’t seem equal, at least as far as fun is concerned. Support ends up feeling a bit like a fourth wheel: the core ability seems more like an ‘oh, crap’ button than something essential. Turtle Rock missed an opportunity to provide more varied, situational options for buffing your teammates.

But kudos to the developers for coming out the gate with strong and stable multiplayer matchmaking. There are already plenty of people playing, and it takes only a few minutes to get into a game. You can select, in order of preference, which role you’d like to play – a good compromise that respects your choice but doesn’t leave you waiting around all day if nobody happens to need your preferred role.

Still, this isn’t a game that lends itself well to casual, drop-in-drop-out gaming. With so few roles to play, you can’t hide away in anonymity as a Hunter – you’ll have to do your job well or you might earn the scorn of your teammates. The best experiences come from playing with people you already know, and you’ll have to put in some practice to develop your skills. I can see Evolve growing less newbie-friendly as time goes on, and even on launch day a lot of the player population (some of whom had no doubt been beta testers) already seemed jaded and judgmental.

But all in all, Evolve is a smart, engaging game. If you’re not a fan of multiplayer, it won’t be your cup of tea, but if you like to mix it up online – and especially if you’ve got a tight group of buddies to game with – you’re in for a good time. Let the wild rumpus start!

What’s hot: Tightly focused design; Triple-A production values; Solid and stable multiplayer

What’s not: Lingering balance issues; Some content siloed off at purchase; Limited single-player experience

You can email Gordon Cameron here.