Staging up?
Evolve, a game that was left for dead by all accounts, has had new life breathed into it. Servers are no longer ghost towns, as players are playing again. Like, a respectable number of people.
It’s amazing what making your game completely free can do.
The reason for this resurgence is because Turtle Rock and 2K Games re-branded and relaunchedEvolveasEvolve Stage 2. The moniker firmly states that the game that launched in February of 2015 is a thing of the past. This is the future forEvolve.
And it has worked so far (even if the sample size is only one day). At time of writing, 24,569 people are playingEvolve Stage 2on Steam. That’s good for the 17th most-played game right now. It can’t hold a candle to the likes ofDota 2orCS:GObut it also beats the hell out of the 157 player-peak thatEvolvehad two days ago.
Of course, this renewed interest inEvolvehasn’t netted the publisher or developer anything beneficial in the way of profits. Remember thatEvolve Stage 2isn’t free-to-play with microtransactions or whatever;it’s just straight-up free. Some form of monetization is likely planned, but the game’s technically in a beta state right now. Expect some sort of money-making hook once Turtle Rock and 2K are more comfortable with the new model. It can’t be any worse thanhowEvolveoriginally launched.
For now, everyone should just be happy thatEvolveis somewhat relevant again. It really isn’t a bad game; it’s just a game that never really felt at-home with a traditional retail release. Maybe this should’ve been howEvolveinitially launched. Maybe, just maybe,Evolvereally is staging up. But, that’s not a story that one day’s worth of numbers will tell.
