Evolve Relaunched As Free-To-Play In Beta Today, Studio Wants Street Cred Back

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Turtle Rock Studios has relaunched their 4 vs 1 multiplayer shooter and gene-gobbler Evolve, so from today's it's officially in beta with a major overhaul; it's now free-to-play.

In a message online to the Evolve community studio co-founders Chris Ashton & Phil Robb reveal why they suddenly made this move. Long-story short it's because the "DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm," which tanked its reception.

"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."

All that starry-eyed wonder turned sour for a great portion of the fledgling community once they learned Evolve's dreaded secret: a tsunami of DLC.

In a bid to repair their image with fans of Evolve, and those who loved their previous big hit Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock is now taking Evolve into the free-to-play hunting grounds.

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"...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," continued the co-founders in their message.

From today, July 7th, Evolve is back on Steam as a Beta release with the new free-to-play switch. "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."

Overhaul highlights:

• 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.

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What of those who already forked over cash monies for this DLC sh*tstorm?

"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."

Turtle Rock promise there's going to be a lot more communication with the Evolve community moving forward and that this jump to F2P will mean big things for its future.

Evolve relaunches from today with the new free-to-play model in beta.

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