Evolve Player Base on PC Rise to 1 Million
Evolve had its share of controversies and it has impacted its sales potential. Now, there is no denying that the game is indeed struggling to meet sales expectation. Just last week, the first-person shooter became free-to-play on PC, and the developer and publisher of this game are announcing that the game has hit one million players.
Developer Turtle Rock Studios and publisher 2K also rewarded its users with Griffin’s Blood Eagle Hunter skin for free. In order for players to redeem this freebie, they must login to Evolve: Stage 2 now up to July 18 at 10 AM PT. The skill will appear on the qualifying players’ profile on July 18.
Evolve: Stage 2 is available now on PC, free to download, free to play, and without microtransactions. In playing the game, the players can pick up Silver Keys. These Keys are used to unlock other in-game content like hunters, monsters, and skins. The people who bought Evolve prior to it becoming free will have their game are upgraded to “Founder” edition. This will give the Founder’s status access to all the content they already owned.
Stats based on the numbers posted over Steam Charts have the game showing otherworldly growth. The June peak player count on Steam is at a dismal 234, now, the current peak is at 51,099. This number even surpasses the player count on its launch last February 2015 at 27,403.
Turtle Rock promises that they will bring Evolve: Stage 2 in the consoles. According to them, the reason for the delay of the game being released on consoles is the long certification process required both by Sony and Microsoft. Turtle Rock would prefer smoothing up the game on PC and apply the fixes on the consoles at once, making it more worth the wait for console owners.
Aside from the pricing structure, the shift to free-to-play model also allowed multiple tweaks and changes to the game. The overall performance had been improved and the load times are shortened. The hunter classes have been also remade to allow the teams to be less reliant on experienced medics and trappers. Maps and UI are also improved as well as other things like customization options, progression system, tutorials and many more.
Evolve inititally shipped 2.5 million copies and had Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to baptize the title as a permanent and long-term franchise. Turtle Rock is the studio the made the Left 4 Dead series and it is pretty obvious the similarities between the two titles.
