14 DAY TRIAL // Turtle Rock’s Evolve multiplayer game has been recently launched, and considering the reviews it has received from players in the last 24 hours, it doesn’t look like it’s going to last more than Titanfall.
I believe we can all agree that most of the press rated Evolve pretty high because they probably did not take into consideration the price, which is a huge factor for customers when choosing their purchases.
However, developers have warned us ahead of the game’s launch that Evolve has been built with DLC in mind from the beginning. That basically means that Turtle Rock is going to sustain itself over the next year through DLC sales.
However, multiplayer games are a different breed and from past experiences like Titanfall, DriveClub, World of Warcraft – Warlords of Draenor and a few others, we have learned that it’s never a good idea to pre-order any games in this genre because they might not work as intended.
Pre-orders may have been good, but what about the future
Turtle Rock, probably pressured by 2K, is trying to get as much money as possible from these pre-orders. This is the main reason they have no less than three different versions that you can order now, of which one would be a PC exclusive.
Those who pre-ordered any of these editions have also received the Monster Expansion pack, which includes the “Savage Goliath” skin and a new monster character.
2K agreed to some deals with various retail partners, so depending from where you made your purchase, you could get different bonuses that would include additional hunters and/or unique skins.
These incentives made everything even more confusing for players, and even though Turtle Rock announced there would be many DLCs launched in the not-so-distant future because this is how they will sustain the development of Evolve further on, it doesn’t make it right for customers.
Making a good multiplayer game does not guarantee success
The press confirms unanimously that Evolve is a decent game, but players think otherwise and that’s not necessarily because it’s affected by issues like random crashes and disconnections.
When you pay $80 for a game that you know will continue to receive DLCs, you expect quite a lot of content, but many players complain that Evolve, in this state, is not worth $60, let alone $80 which gets you additional stuff.
Turtle Rock should be proud of their work as many, including myself, had a blast playing Evolve in Beta. However, the DLC plans 2K has for the game is likely to bury Evolve in like 3 to 6 months, just like Titanfall.
I’m stunned that 2K hasn’t learned from EA’s mistakes and decided to follow the same DLC recipe for a new multiplayer franchise that does not have a supporting community yet.
They should have first launched a very good game, as complete as possible, and then, if it gathered a decent community, start thinking about releasing additional DLCs.
Evolve seems incomplete at launch
As it stands, Evolve only seems to attract negative comments from players who paid quite a lot of money for what they think is an incomplete game.
It’s always a bad thing to launch a day-one DLC, let alone a game that is weak on content quantity. Also, you can’t trick players into buying an incomplete game, so they will have to purchase your DLCs to get a full gaming experience.
Obviously, announcing your DLC plans and explaining that this is how you will be able to support Evolve for the years to come does not make it right at all.
I really feel for those who paid a lot of money for Deluxe Edition or PC Monster Race Edition and aren’t fully satisfied by what they got in return. But I also feel for Turtle Rock who made a fairly decent multiplayer game that’s now bashed because of its DLC plans. What do you think about Evolve?