2K Games announced that Turtle Rock Studio’s asymmetrical multiplayer PvP game, Evolve, will have its servers shut down starting September 3rd, 2018. The dedicated servers, leaderboards, and ranked matches will all be turned off, along with player profiles and the online news feeds.
The news was posted up over on 2K Games support site on June 2nd, 2018. The news indicates that starting July 2nd, 2018 the game’s virtual currency bundles for Evolve Stage 2 will no longer be available and cash shop purchases will no longer be allowed. Two months later, the dedicated servers will be shut down.
You’ll still be able to play Evolve in offline mode, including peer-to-peer matches on PC and on PS4 and Xbox One. Evolve Stage 2, however, will no longer be accessible over on the Steam store page.
The multiplayer peer-to-peer modes for quick play will still be accessible, including the Hunt, Nest, Rescue, Defend, and Arena modes, along with Evacuation and Custom games. Single-player modes such as Evacuation and Quick Play will also be accessible.
How To Play Evolve On PC In Offline Mode
For PC gamers who own Evolve or who have accessed Evolve: Stage 2, you’ll have to go into the properties from the library menu, and then go over to the “Betas” tab. From there select from the drop-down menu the option to access the “Original Evolve Product”.
After the game updates and downloads the old patches, it will allow you to access the original version of Evolve instead of Evolve: Stage 2.
How Evolve Failed
The game originally came out in 2015 but it failed right out of the gate… hard. Stupid balancing issues, a lack of a campaign mode, and forced classes with restrictive gameplay meant that players had to play the game a certain way in order to defeat the monster.
Instead of making a Monster Hunter style game with the option to play as the monster, the game was more of a very restrictive arena deathmatch game where a handful of hunters had to each use their abilities in order to track down and kill an ever-evolving monster played by another player.
Most matches were lopsided, either with the monster being too strong or too weak, or players being too disorganized or too well-organized.
Most matches lacked intensity or fun, and the game died pretty quickly early during launch. A year later 2K Games and Turtle Rock rebooted Evolve as Evolve: Stage 2, a free-to-play iteration of the game, and it garnered 1 million more players at first. However, after a few months the game’s strong start died out like a weak flame on a wick from a melted candle.
Fast forward a year later and Evolve: Stage 2 has only been able to manage 270 players on average a day, according to the Steam Charts.
At this point it’s best to get in any game time while you can before the game’s dedicated servers go kaput this September.
