Evolve, the asymmetrical multiplayer game launches February 10th on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. The creators of Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock Studios, put more individuality in each character in Evolve. There is plenty to do in Evolve, so look forward to guides coming soon. Before that, there are some things you should do to prepare for the launch.
Preorder Evolve if You Want Extras
This isn’t just to make sure you get the game, you get bonuses as well. The standard edition preorder gets you the Monster Expansion Pack, which comes with the Savage Goliath skin and a new monster when it releases.
The deluxe edition costs $80, $20 more than the standard, and gives you the Hunting Season Pass. This season pass gives you 4 new hunters when they become available, and 3 magma skins immediately for Goliath, Kraken, and Wraith. This saves $5 if you buy it separately.
If you preorder digitally from the Xbox Store, you unlock the third set of hunters instantly on release. You can still unlock them without preordering, it just takes longer.
If you preorder from Gamestop, you get the Exterminator Weapon Skin Pack. This gives you a new weapon skin for the first set of hunters.
Amazon preorders gives you access to the second set of hunters instantly.
Get the Evolve Companion app
Evolve: Hunters Quest is an app by 2k Games that plays a lot like Candy Crush mixed with a turn-based RPG. You control 4 hunters and the different tokens correspond to one of the hunters. Matching these tokens fills up a bar for that particular hunter, which grants access to skills.
For example, matching the medic tokens when playing as Val, grants access to the Armor-Piercing Sniper Rifle. This does extra damage to a monster and causes them to target Val. You have to do enough damage to the monsters to move on and if a hunter dies, you don’t get anything for matching their tokens.
The game also lets you add bonuses to the full Evolve game. You can spend in-game currency to add boosts to your hunter skills. These boosts make it easier to rank up their skills, which is also used to unlock new hunters.
Furthermore, you can watch replays from Evolve, though it is just the top-down map view you see after a game is over. There is also a section to track in-game stats, leaderboards, and encyclopedia on the game.
This is available on iOS, Android, Windows, and Amazon Fire Devices, so if you have one of those, you should definitely get this app and start working on it before launch.
Familiarize yourself with Evolve
Although it is too late to play the, you can still see gameplay. If you’re like me, you like to see a game in action before you buy and one of the best ways to do that is on YouTube. GameSpot has some gameplay footage if you’d like to see individual classes.
Maps and Game Modes
There are 16 maps and 5 games modes. I’ll go into more detail in my Beginner’s guide, but I’ll briefly explain each game mode here.
- Evacuation – Play 5 missions in a dynamic campaign with all game modes and the environment is affected by winning and losing.
- Defend – The Monster must destroy the transport ship’s power source before time runs out. Hunter must defend or kill the monster.
- Rescue – Hunters must revive and evacuate 5 survivors before the monster kills all 5.
- Hunt – Hunters must find and kill the monster before it kill them, When the monster is stage 3, it can destroy the power relay.
- Nest – The Monster must kill the hunters before they destroy all the eggs and minions. The monster can hatch an egg to spawn a minion with the obvious loss of an egg.
For those that like to play solo and not online, there is an offline solo play mode. You can play a monster against AI-controlled or hunters, or as a team of hunters against an AI-controlled monster. You can switch between the hunters at any point in the game.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments. Look forward to many guides in the coming days!
