Evolve is a game that gets almost everything right. After spending time with the alpha, beta and now final retail release of the game, I’m now confident in making that statement. Talking about the game itself has to be a separate conversation from 2K’s pre-order/DLC ideas, which has been the main focus of press surrounding the game before launch, but looking at the game as just that, a game, I understand the high marks its getting from critics across the board.
I love how despite an almost total lack of story, Evolve manages to convey a richness of personality through its monster, character and level design alone. It all feels iconic, even as a new release, and pairs great visuals with tight gameplay across all characters, hunters or monsters. It still remains to be seen whether the game will be “worth” $60 to many, as it’s too early to tell that a mere day after launch, but so far from what I’m seeing, despite sharing a similar concept to Titanfall, it doesn’t feel quite as sparse.
In my mind, the game really only has one major problem. It’s not a lack of content, and it’s not balance issues either. Yes, it has them, but all competitive multiplayer games do, and they’re resolved/tweaked in time. But for a brand new game, Evolve seems pretty balanced from the get-go. I hear players constantly complaining that playing as the monster is either too easy, or too hard, and at least from the beta test, the hunter/monster win rate was almost a perfect 50/50 split. That’s impressive. And past all this, I think the team should be applauded for launching an online-heavy game without any serious server meltdowns, a true rarity in this day and age.
Rather, I think Evolve really only has one major problem. Unfortunately, it’s one that essentially makes up the entire concept of the game.
The hunt.
The hunt refers to the game of cat and mouse that make up the main mode of Evolve, where players stalk a monster across the map, trying to trap and kill it at low levels. Eventually, it reaches its final stage and then turns around and makes them the prey.
When described like that, it sounds cool, but in practice, for a competitive shooter, Evolve has a very, very large amount of downtime. Not as in, you sit in the lobby for ages waiting for the next game to start (which can sometimes happen), but within the game itself.
It’s something of a foreign concept to the shooter space. In this age of competitive multiplayer, we’re used to nearly non-stop action. In small maps, games like Team TISI Fortress, Call of Duty or Halo are constant bloodbaths. In larger ones, the action may be spread out, but it it’s still more or less nonstop, even if sniper rifles are swapped in for SMGs.
Evolve is different. Way different. The bulk of each match is simply running around, whether you’re the monster or the hunters. Granted, it’s a bit more complicated than that, as monsters have to each wildlife to gain armor and level up, and hunters have to follow footprints or track disturbed birds to locate the monster, but the process makes matches often exhaustingly long, and the “hunt” part of the hunt, the stalking and hiding, just isn’t very fun.
The most interesting thing to do when in this part of the game is to kill uber-creatures that give you buffs, but past that? The whole point of the game for the monster is to avoid fighting for 70% of the match, sneaking, hiding and eating. For the hunters, they’re meant to endlessly chase after the monster while having a much slower base movement speed, and a limited supply of boosting jetpack fuel that should realistically be saved for actual combat encounters. They spend the majority of the game feeling like they’re running through mud, as the monster is forever a million miles away. Depending on the monster, this can be amplified. The Wraith, for example, has the ability to decoy and essentially teleport out of combat completely, and is easily the hardest monster to catch. Compounding hunter downtime is the fact that you’ll also spend a lot of time dead, and have to wait to respawn in the dropship. It’s necessary to ensure the monster can actually win, but you will often spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs as death can come swiftly and often with a good monster.
Obviously, none of this lasts forever. An inept monster can get caught at early levels and wrecked by hunters. A good monster will live until stage three and then the match will conclude with an explosive firefight. And yet, actual, true monster vs. player combat just doesn’t feel like a big enough part of each match. It’s the reason that far and away the best playable mode is Defend, where hunters are allowed to stay put for a change, and defend a pair of shield generators and an evacuating ship while big and small monsters rush them from the forest. It’s practically non-stop action, and far and away the most fun type of game to play.
But Hunt, Evolve’s “main” mode, has all the aforementioned problems with downtime. So much of each match is focused on the monster desperately trying to avoid fighting, that it makes the early stages of the match sluggish. It’s like playing a match of Call of Duty, but for the first five minutes, the entire other team is playing hide-and-go-seek, running as far away as possible and hiding in dark corners of the map so you can’t find them.
Obviously Evolve is a new type of multiplayer experience, so it can be hard to judge it by old metrics. I’m not sure if every match being a non-stop royal rumble between monsters and hunters is a good idea. But right now, constantly chasing after a very fast target with nothing to do but snipe at a few local critters is not a fun way for four hunters to spend the majority of the match (and it’s never enjoyable being one-shot by random carnivorous plants). From my time spent as the monster, constantly fleeing and hiding makes the beginning of each round rather tiresome as well.
My suggestion? Condense the matches, so the format of the hunt still exists, yet things move along more quickly. Make the base movement speed of the monster slower so he’s more easily caught, but allow him to level up more quickly by feeding on less wildlife.
Perhaps the subtleties of the hunt will grow on me in time. There’s so much else I like about the game, that it’s easy to ignore the issue much of the time, but the endless running makes most matches so long I only want to play one or two at a time, rather than ever sit down for a marathon session.
As read from Forbes.com
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