Asymmetrical Monster Hunting Game Evolve Goes Free-To-Play

In a surprising move, Turtle Rock Studios announced yesterday that its asymmetrical, competitive monster hunting first-person shooter Evolve would be going free-to-play. Now, as it was just announced yesterday, one would expect that it would be a while until the game went free-to-play, but, even more surprisingly, it is free-to-play as of today.

Dubbed Evolve Stage 2, "Evolve has been completely overhauled on PC with new game design, gameplay mechanics, and improved gameplay balance and system performance." The new version of the game allows players to unlock everything, regardless of whether they pay.

Those who had paid previously will be given "Founders Status," which grants them "3,000 Silver Keys, all past and future Adaptations for previously owned Hunters and Monsters, dozens of Weapon Skins, and four unique, animated Founder badges" in addition to all previously owned "Hunters, Monsters, or Skins." Founders will also be given exclusive cosmetics in the future.

According to Turtle Rock, "making Evolve free on PC is going to be a process that takes time and a lot of hard work," but it starts today in Beta form. You can download the game via Steam completely free of charge, should you be so inclined.

Edit: 2 Days After Going F2P, Evolve is hitting over 40,000 concurrent users on Steam. Quite an achievement. Time will tell whether the game maintains such numbers.