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Evolve going free2play on PC July 7th, consoles later, [Has major gameplay redesigns]

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Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Update: Game Informer details the major gameplay changes and very aggressive service update rate here: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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I'll go out on a limb and guess that Take-Two will move Battleborn to f2p around Summer 2017, once they've had time to clear out all the channel inventory and polish up the game as much as possible.

Turtle Rock said:
MacMan Co-Founder 4h2

So, when you first walk into Turtle Rock, this is what you see:

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We’re proud of those awards -- they hang in the lobby for a reason. Evolve received over 65 nominations and awards at various trade shows after we announced. It was the first title in history to win Game of Show at both E3 and Gamescom. It felt great to receive all those awards and we don’t ever want to forget that feeling. Game development is an art and what artist doesn’t love having their work appreciated?

When people first started playing Evolve at those and other conferences, it was magical. Sure, there was the AAA videogame hype surrounding our title. Yeah, we also had the flashy displays, the giant Goliath statue, and all the other things AAA games do to get people excited. And that stuff was cool. Really cool. But, what we lived for -- what was cooler by far -- was just seeing people play Evolve for the first time. We worked on it for years and then, suddenly, people got to experience our game, controller in-hand. There was genuine excitement -- real joy -- when people played. It was like nothing they’d ever played before and watching it happen was like no high we ever felt.

Then, when Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected. Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience.

We want that magic back and we aim to make it happen. We’ve made a lot of changes, improvements and additions to Evolve over the past year and we’ve got a lot more coming. In short, we’re giving this game a vigorous overhaul!

Just to give you some examples:

We’re reworking the hunter classes to make the team less reliant on having experienced trappers and medics.
We’re making improvements to the maps and UI.
We’re improving load times, overall performance, and getting you into the game faster.
We’re focusing on improving stability and fixing bugs.
We’re completely reworking our progression system and tutorials.
We’re adding more customization options.
Most importantly, we just want to put the game in your hands. Try Evolve out. See what you think. We hope you like it and we're not going to charge you to give it a try.

“Wait! What?! What does that mean?”

It means we’ve been listening and now we’re taking Evolve in the direction that a lot of you have suggested since the beginning. We’re making Evolve free on PC. No buy-in or box required.

Making Evolve free on PC is going to be a process that takes time and a lot of hard work, but we believe in Evolve and we believe in you, our players and want to do what’s best for both!

Here’s how it’s going to work: We’re going to make Evolve free on PC as a Beta starting on July 7. This is going to allow us to hit our new server infrastructure really hard and we need your help testing. Stuff could break, and that’s our hope, because that will give us time to improve things as we go. We’ll parse out major Beta revisions, updates and features over a period of weeks and months -- a plan we're going to continually communicate here. This allows us to test new features and major changes to make our game more accessible and ever closer to the joy we saw when we first showed our baby to the world. Just as importantly, this Beta plan gives us the flexibility and time we need to keep fixing bugs and making Evolve more stable.

“What about those who paid for Evolve? What about Season Passers?”

Anyone who owns classic Evolve will be given “Founder” status in the new free version, and all the content you already own comes with you to the new version. As long as we work on Evolve, we will show our appreciation for our committed fans and early adopters with gifts, rewards, and special access. Why? Because you believed like we did, and we will never forget that.

As part of our promise to recapture the magic and improve the Evolve experience across-the-board, we're going to ratchet up our communication with the community. We will be continually updating our social channels, our forums and our website to let you know how it’s going.

We have lived and breathed Evolve for over four years and we feel like we are just getting started. Since launch we realized Evolve has provided people some of their most exciting gaming moments and we want to make more of those for everyone... well, everyone who is OK with being periodically murdered (brutally) by terrifying alien monsters.

See you on Shear.

Chris Ashton & Phil Robb
Co-Founders
Turtle Rock Studios, Inc.
MacMan Co-Founder 2h

The beta is on Steam because it allows us to iterate very quickly, to listen to feedback and respond in record time (we are able to work on a weekly patch schedule.) We can test new features most effectively here, figure out what works and what doesn't with intent to bring it to the consoles should it prove successful.
Source: https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/a-message-to-our-community/87816
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
No wonder it wasn't part of the steam sale!!
I was looking for it.
 

Trace

Banned
If a large chunk of the current content is free, I might give it another try. If it's anything like what the game launched with, with the rest as paid content, no chance.
 

CHC

Member
As if that countdown thing was actually supposed to surprise anyone...

Everyone in the thread was calling it.

Will this be better or worse for the game? Seems it was in a pretty desolate state, so maybe it'll provide a temporary little boost?
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
Then, when Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected. Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience.

Pretty bold admission here.
 
They themselves called it a dlc shitstorm? Damn.

I admire their candor, if nothing else. Most companies would only reference the problem vaguely if they even addressed it at all.

As to the F2P choice? They should've done that from the get go IMO. Now the question becomes what's free and what isn't.
 
I hope this works out for them. I really loved Evolve and was disappointed by 2K's marketing as well as the general population being too impatient to learn the ins-and-outs of the game. Hope they don't change too much that alienates the original players instead.
 
I really appreciate their honesty.

I was interested in the asymmetric gameplay that they were going for, so if they can improve on it I'm in for another try.
 

Wagram

Member
I feel like it would make more sense to simply move on. I'm not sure that moving F2P will make the larger audience care. There's so many things that require attention and I honestly don't see that thing being Evolve.
 
Good to see there's a compensation plan in order for people who purchased the vanilla game.

Seeing that the servers are pretty much empty, this move to F2P is already a good thing for anyone that had Evolve. The compensation is necessary of course, but it was a good move all things considered.
 
I admire their candor, if nothing else. Most companies would only reference the problem vaguely if they even addressed it at all.

As to the F2P choice? They should've done that from the get go IMO. Now the question becomes what's free and what isn't.

I think when the game was being conceptualized, back in 2011-2012, the idea of launching a (purportedly) AAA title for 'free' probably would've seemed absurd. Even now there are different models than F2P/Pay Up Front + Content DLC; look at Overwatch for instance.
 
it should have been that way to begin with, I'm not even going to bother downloading it their DLC practice has been so disgusting


over 80 dollars worth of content paywalled off in a 60 dollar game

gross
 

Syder

Member
This is long overdue. Should have gone F2P after 6 months and given everyone who pre-ordered all of the premium content.
 
I really enjoyed what I did play on PS4 shortly after launch. I kept with it for a while but eventually moved on. Hope it works out for them, it's a pretty good game!
 

Sn4ke_911

If I ever post something in Japanese which I don't understand, please BAN me.
This game is the best example that winning tons of awards doesn't automatically make it a good game.
 
I'll try it out when it comes to ps4 I guess. Seems like a smart move since the playerbase dropped pretty quickly, now there should at least be some warm bodies to play against.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
Well, I'll finally be willing to try this game now. I'll hold off thinking about Battle Borne until it's crazy cheap or free to try, just like Dota2, and Heroes of the Storm. I stayed away from LoL because the community is notorious for hating new players, that's the impression I got at least.
 

Kid Heart

Member
Never played the game before, but I figure it's at least worth a go for that price. I've always loved Left 4 Dead, so I imagine it can't be too bad.
 
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