One way of getting people back into a game is to have a hyped up promo campaign and free-to-play gameplay. At the very least gamers are going to check out what you have to offer. In the case of Evolve Stage 2, it worked.

PC Gamer is reporting that the revitalization of Evolve has seen a 16,000% increase in active players since it went free-to-play. According to PC Gamer the day before it went free-to-play the peak user count was 157. For a multiplayer-only kind of game those are the kind of numbers that make single-player gamers glad they didn’t waste their time. However, after going free-to-play, the numbers jumped up to 24,000. The number climbed up yet again recently, peaking at over 41,000 active players.

Turtlerock Studios and 2K Games are probably ecstatic that so many gamers have decided to give Evolve Stage 2 a go again.

The maps, the design and the overall deathmatch-limited gameplay environment just wasn’t enough to appeal to my better senses. Nevertheless, after the first day of going free-to-play and racking up a lot of mentions in the news wires from high profile websites, one would have expected the numbers to dip, but that didn’t happen at all; they rose.

Blasting up from 24,000 players to 41,000 players is no easy feat. It’s still no where near the top played game on Steam, but it did make it within the top 15 most played games on Valve’s digital distribution service.

Turtlerock reworked and revamped the gameplay, expanding and redesigning the maps, adding new perks, rebalancing the monsters and tweaking a lot of the other gameplay elements. For some people it was enough to lure them back in, for others it was an opportunity to play-test the game if they missed it when it first released back in early 2015.

It’s funny because if you look at the old reviews for Evolve you’ll see a lot of complaints about a lack of a proper campaign, complaints about poorly balanced multiplayer, and complaints about poorly balanced monster play. As a new batch of player start to pile into the game, we’ll be able to see over the course of the next week if those mixed review scores begin to turn positive… or if they’ll fall deeper into the negative side.

If you want to try your own hand at Evolve Stage 2, feel free to grab a digital copy of the asymmetrical deathmatch game by dropping by the Steam store page.

(Main image courtesy of RiSE)