Evolve Devs Talk About Free DLC, Cutting Features, Modding, and More

Evolve developer Turtle Rock Studios held a Reddit Ask Me Anything recently where they answered some questions about the 4v1 multiplayer shooter.

Reddit user parkurtommo asked how Turtle Rock’s plans to support Evolve with DLC after launch (the developer recently announced that it will give maps away for free):

Co-founder Phill Robb: “Right now we’re looking at maps, monsters, characters, some community support features. We’ve tried to come up with a plan that we as gamers felt good about. As much as we’d love to give all of our DLC away for free, end of the day it costs a lot of money for us to make it.

“New maps will be free, community features will be free. Characters and monsters will be paid DLC, BUT, you’ll still be able to play with people who bought them, even if you don’t purchase them yourself.

“The main idea is that we don’t split the community. We wanted to set it up so that if you don’t want to buy DLC your experience is still enhanced by its presence.”

laidtokickback asked what ideas or mechanics Turtle Rock had to cut from the game.

Writer, Designer, and Producer Matt Colville: “Man we had to cut a lot of stuff, but the core design never shifted.

“We originally had a much more ambitious plan for the wildlife, for instance. Like, the planet was almost a third team and it wasn’t unusual for one side to win because the other got destroyed by the wildlife.

“But we pretty quickly dropped that. It was very unsatisfying to be running through the world, looking for the monster, and get HEROES WIN out of nowhere. You won, but you didn’t cheer. You sat around wondering what happened? It was a huge letdown.

“So we scaled the wildlife back to make them more situational.”

Co-founder Phill Robb: “We had a lot of hunters and monsters that we had to leave on the table. More ideas than we had time and budget for!”

necroscar268 asked if Turtle Rock is worried that players will gravitate towards the same monsters or hunters.

Producer Chloe Skew: “Absolutely not. I think you may see trends from individual people, due to play style and personal preference, but as far as a player base-wide trend to only stick to the last four hunters, I would be really disappointed if we saw that – because it would mean players were really limiting themselves. Each Hunter has their own utility that completely changes the strategies you’ll use in the fight (not to mention the myriad of strategies possible in different modes).

Co-founder Phill Robb: “If we get to a point where certain hunters have a clear power discrepancy over/under other hunters, that’s a candidate for a balance tweak. The idea is that all hunters are equally valid.

“We may indeed see favorites and certain hunters showing up more than others, and in that case we’re going to be looking very close at that to figure out why, and fix it if possible.”

xdflames asked how Turtle Rock thinks Evolve will work in the eSports scene.

Co-founder Chris Ashton: “Our initial idea was squads of five. Our monster plays against your Hunters. Your Monster plays against our Hunters. Play one match straight up. If our Hunters win and our Monster wins, we’re done. We move onto the next round. If both our Monsters win, we go into some sort of tie breaker.”

ikeepitbrutal asked if Turtle Rock had any plans to open the game up to the modding community.

Co-founder Phill Robb: “I’m personally hopeful we’ll be able to open things up for modding, but because we don’t own the engine Evolve uses, there are significant roadblocks we have to clear to make it a reality. No promises, but if we CAN, we will.”

Evolve was originally targeted to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this year, but was delayed to February 10, 2015. Turtle Rock also recently revealed that there’s more to the game than you think.

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