Right now, Evolve is on sale for 25% off on Steam. But does anyone care?
Turtle Rock Studios’ new game has had very mixed reviews from the start. A lot of critics considered it to be a masterpiece. Others compared it to the dirt under their feet.
These perspectives don’t seem to have changed much. In the week Evolve launched, up to 27,403 players were playing at the same time. Not long afterwards, its playerbase plummeted dwindling down to a pitiful ~4,000 players.
Why did this happen? Some say it’s because of its lacking single player. Some say it’s because of their baffling DLC prices. And others say it’s because of their unnecessarily extensive progression system. Either way, aside from the glowing reviews they received from critics, Turtle Rock had a lot working against them.
I think it’s a mixture of the above reasons. Evolve was a new franchise with an idea unique enough to revolutionize shooters. Both sides have a fair chance at winning. There is a definite distinction between good and bad players. And it’s deep. (Yes, it is.)
But when you start a new franchise, you need to make it enticing enough on all fronts for players to keep playing your game. Or perhaps more importantly, to pick it up in the first place. I believe that Turtle Rock became overconfident when they were handed awards left and right, and figured they could get away with charging a premium for their DLC content.
The progression system was a silly mistake. The idea was fine, but terribly implemented. It caused players to quit before they got to the good stuff.
Regardless, I still think Evolve is a very strong game once you get past all of these things. As you can see from the chart, once the number of players reached 5,000, the number of players dropping Evolve almost stopped. Those are most likely the players that did get past Evolve‘s shoddy progression system and got to the point were they could enjoy the game in its full glory.
If Evolve really was as bad as we make it out to be, then shouldn’t their playerbase have nearly vanished by now?
What do you think? Did you try Evolve? Or are you going to try it out now that it’s cheaper? Let us know in the comments!
