I'm not interested in reading anything. Where do I download the game?
Here, on Steam. It may not be up yet as of the time of this post, but it's coming today: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273350/
Hey, what's changed?
Well, the easiest way to read about this is to go here and see it with animated images and everything: http://www.evolveupdates.com/stage2/
I don't like leaving NeoGAF ever.
All right then, let's try and get a summary in here...
So I heard Evolve is going free 2 play...
You are correct. Evolve is now a free 2 play game on PC (starting today), and once they've finished tuning the title, it will become free 2 play on consoles as well.
How does the free 2 play model work?
Every week, four hunters (one of each class) and one monster will be in the free rotation. There are currently 24 Hunters and 7 Monsters in total, though some are variations of others. By playing the character tutorials, you unlock one hunter (Markov) and one monster (The Goliath) to keep forever.
Additional monsters, hunters, perks, and skins are unlocked by earning silver keys. Silver keys are earned by playing the game, leveling up, or getting login bonuses. Currently you can't actually buy silver keys, presumably so they can test the unlock rate, but that's coming later.
There is also a monthly login bonus punch card. You get one punch for each day you log in. Beyond silver keys, this can directly award new Hunters and Skins.
And of course, like most PC and console f2p games, there are daily quests/challenges for you to complete for even more keys and other rewards.
But I bought the game.
You get all the content you already owned along with a variety of bonuses like hunters, monsters, skins, badge backgrounds, badge foregrounds, and perks. You also get a pile of 3000 silver keys. You also start at Account Level 1, so you get to get all the level up bonuses and key infusions.
I heard that there have been gameplay changes.
You are correct. Here's a quick rundown of some of the changes.
- All Hunters can now trap the Monster. Traps also no longer miss. In response, the Monster can now vastly lower the duration of a trap by incapacitating a hunter, and the duration also gets chunks cut off as the Monster takes damage.
- The Monster now has enough skill points to buy all their skills at level 1. Specifically, they get 4 ability points and can spend them how they want to.
- As the Trapper no longer has the dome, they instead have a Monster GPS that points to the Monster and gives the Trapper a speed boost. This is temporary. Between this and the dome change, it should be much easier to find the Monster instead of running around for 7 minutes.
- The Medic grants a passive regeneration to the entire team whenever they're not taking damage. They can still heal, but the idea is that this makes it so that having a newer player on healer isn't completely devastating for the team.
- The Assault's defense matrix is now a 75% damage reduction instead of an invulnerability shield so that the Monster can actually kill them.
- The Support now casts an area barrier that effects all teammates in a 30 meter radius.
- The respawn timer now works more like a MOBA, where it's very short in the beginning, and gets longer as the match progresses. Specifically, it starts at 0, and it goes up by 25 seconds whenever a Monster evolves, and 10 seconds whenever a Hunter is downed, up to a maximum of 2 minutes.
- Daisy generally works much better for tracking the Monster.
- There are now damage numbers so you can tell if you're hitting the monster and how much damage you're doing.
- The game has an overhauled perk system where you can select a loadout of perks. These are for both Monsters and Hunters. It looks like there are three slots. I think it works such that you select one Minor, one Major, and one Superior perk, but I can't quite tell.
- This is not a complete list of gameplay changes, but I think I hit most of the big ones. I could be wrong. There's kind of a lot here.
Have there been any graphical improvements? What about map redesigns?
Yes, the game has both received visual upgrades and a significant visual pass for gameplay clarity. The level design of four of the maps have also changed, with presumably more coming in the future. Here is a sample:
These changes also apply to things like particle effects.
Before you ask, the character design is still the same.
Did they change anything else?
The UI has gotten a large overhaul, the download size is now half as big, you select your character before a match starts to significantly lower loading time, the game has had significant performance improvements, the game should be very stable now, the matchmaking is much faster, and they're going to do much more frequent game updates (and can now do so weekly).
Your title says frequent updates.
For at least the first two months, the game is getting a new hunter every two weeks and new perks in every week in between. There will also be a variety of other updates coming out with these updates. They imply that the plan is to keep up that rate, but of course that's dependent on if anyone actually plays the game.
So is this the only thing Turtle Rock is making?
No, they've also been hiring for a new IP.
