I believe it was the eccentric mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm, who once said, “If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.”
And that, rather neatly, not only sums up Evolve, but how I feel about it.
The set-up is really simple. In the future, humanity has reached for the stars and started to colonise distant planets. Being a bunch of intergalactic oafs, we’ve already begun to ruin these faraway worlds, building immense factories that spew out black smoke as they harvest natural resources. Such pioneering communities have started to encounter resistance – not so much from the planet’s natural inhabitants, though they can be pretty hostile at times, but from an alien life-form that seems hell-bent on sabotaging everything we build.
Meet The Hunters
This is why you’re here. You make up one quarter of a team of ‘planet-tamers’, whose responsibility is to protect these settlements from such attacks.
Matches begin with you and your team-mates parachuting down from a military plane that’s been scrambled. Down on the planet, the humans who requested your help are safe behind forcefields, waiting for the all clear. You have a set-time to track, stalk and slay the terrible monster lurking in the shadows.
Watch the video below to see some thrilling gameplay footage and learn more about the hunters and how a hunt evolves. (That pun wasn't intentional. Promise.)
While the concept is simple, Evolve’s complexity and nuance emerges from its characters. The team’s well-balanced and the much of the appeal for me came from the interplay of their specific abilities. Of course, it all incentivises teamwork – without it, the monster is just too powerful and will decimate your team.
The hunting party is always made up from the same four characters: Griffin, Markov, Val, and Hank. Each belongs to a distinct class and has specialised weapons and abilities. Griffin is the trapper, the most unusual of Evolve’s classes. Sporting a fedora decorated by a row of fearsome teeth, he certainly looks the part – a mix of Robert Muldoon, Crocodile Dundee, and a Victorian explorer (he already has a decent claim for the most impressive moustache of 2014).
From the outset, the trapper’s the role that comes with the most pressure. You’re expected to be scouring the ground, picking up on tracks, but also looking to the horizon, where subtle clues like a flock of birds startled into flight can reveal the monster’s location. All eyes are on you.
Fortunately, Griffin’s equipment helps with hunting the monster. He can drive sound sensors into the mud that, when triggered, flash up a waypoint onscreen for the entire team to follow. Still, when leading the team, there’s little substitute for clear communication and absolute conviction.
Eventually, you’ll track down the monster. At this point the rest of the team become way more involved, but your duties as trapper aren’t quite over. Griffin inflicts a decent amount of damage – the second most behind the Assault class – but he’s also invaluable to the team if he concentrates on containing the monster. His secondary weapon, a harpoon, helps greatly – it snares the monster and prevents it from escaping. It’s really satisfying to land a last-minute shot onto the creature just as it’s about to blend into the trees or jump over a cliff.
From left to right: Val (medic), Markov (assault), Griffin (trapper), Hank (support).
Griffin’s most useful and specialised piece of kit is the mobile arena. Throw it down and a blue forcefield, resembling a huge bio-dome, quickly radiates outwards. If you’ve timed it just right, you’ll trap the monster inside. It’s a key tactic early on when the monster, not yet in possession of all its abilities, will be more inclined to run than fight.
It’s time for you team-mates to step into the breach. In terms of roles, this is much more familiar territory – assault, support, medic – but it’s still worth exploring each character briefly, as they have some noteworthy skills.
Markov is the all-out assault character. His role is simple: inflict the most damage. To do so, he’s armed with heavy-duty weaponry – an electronic assault rifle, useful at a distance, and an extremely potent lightning gun, which is most effective up close. His other abilities, again, are perfectly suited to the role – a personal shield allows him to get much closer to the monster than anyone else and a pocketful of land mines provide additional firepower.
Supporting Markov and everyone else is, unsurprisingly, the support class. Hank is a blue-collar kind of guy – he looks like he just stepped off a worksite and he requires a pretty selfless, attentive kind of player. Ideally, he’s the guy providing backup to Griffin and Markov as they attack the monster. His primary weapon is a laser cutter, and while it deals decent damage, Hank’s secondary weapon reveal his true worth. It’s a shield projector, which can be aimed like a weapon to lend further protection to any of his team-mates.
It’s a demanding role, requiring you to evade the monster’s gaze while looking for the player that would most benefit from your help. It’s best to squirrel yourself away up high or further back from the action, so you have a better overview of the hunt and how it’s unfolding. Hank’s cloaking ability, which also cloaks team-mates nearby, is a useful perk; it’s also is invaluable if you’re the last one alive, and need to survive until the drop ship returns your team-mates. Hank isn’t entirely defensively minded – he can rain down a formidable orbital barrage onto the monster if you can master the timing.
Finally, Val is the team’s medic. She’s obviously able to replenish the team’s health. The medgun allows this to be done from a distance, while the healing field generator, Val’s rechargeable ability, lets you restore a much bigger chunk of health to all those in range. Tending to your team-mates is, of course, a major part of being the medic, yet Val has offensive abilities that really help take down the monster. Her sniper rifle opens up weak points in the alien’s armour, allowing for Markov and Griffin to register more damage. Her tranquilliser gun not only makes the monster slower and drowsier, it also outlines the creature in bright green, making it visible even through walls.
Finally, all players are equipped with a nifty jet pack – it’s an invaluable piece of equipment that lets you traverse the map quickly. It’s also handy in battle, with the boost letting you quickly manoeuvre out of tight spots. The monster is naturally much faster and doesn’t fatigue, so the jet pack is crucial for balancing out the game.
Those are the characters. But Evolve really comes into its own once the team is comfortable with their abilities and understand the importance of their role. Eventually an understanding is reached, and a dance begins to emerge amidst the frenzy of the hunt. Players begin to circle around the beleaguered creature, discharging brightly coloured energy beams. It becomes a graceful, gruesome dance to the death – a weird futuristic bullfight.
On page the next page, find out what it's like to play as the monster and more about the weird wildlife waiting for you on the planet Shear.
looks interesting!
