Prepare to return to the arena and hunt down your favourite monster once more as Evolve shifts to a Free-to-Play (F2P) business model.

Early last year, critically acclaimed and multi-award winning game, Evolve, released to mediocre reviews and mixed reception. 2K and Turtle Rock Studios had a very good thing going for them pre-launch, with record pre-sales, excellent alpha-builds and events that promoted extreme hype. However, due to a series of poor publishing decisions, Evolve went down a path that saw a major drop in players by the second week after its launch.

Interestingly, Evolve recently disappeared off of the Steam store. After a lot of confusion, a press release from 2K and Turtle Rock Studios finally appeared.

In a detailed announcement over at the Turtle Rock Forums, co-founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb explained that Evolve will be making the shift from its current Pay-to-Play business model to the much more cut-throat Free-to-Play market, all in an effort to open the game up to more users and reinvigorate the game for its dwindling audience.

The announcement chronicles the crazy timeline that Evolve has had, from its incredibly successful pre-launch campaigns and promises, to its ultimate failure as a decent title post-launch. It was revealed that the biggest culprit was the studio’s controversial downloadable content packages that were priced too high for a standalone triple-A title, which players had already purchased for $59.99 USD at the time.

A new PC beta that is meant to tide players over until the game’s re-launch on the free-to-play market, will be made available from 7 July 2016. This shift to a F2P model will come with reworked progression systems, better maps, a new clean User Interface (UI) and easier mechanics that will allow much younger or inexperienced audiences to pick the title up for immediate play.

[Sources: Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Turtle Rock Studios]

Junior Editor at Vamers. From Superman to Ironman; Bill Rizer to Sam Fisher and everything in-between, Edward loves it all. He is a Bachelor of Arts student and English Major specialising in Language and Literature. He is an avid writer and casual social networker with a flare for all things tech related.