Evolve’s dedicated servers are being shut down

Evolve has been down a rocky road since it launched and it looks like the asymmetrical multiplayer game from Turtle Rock is finally losing all publisher support.

2K has announced that Evolve Stage 2 dedicated servers are to shut down on 3 September 2018 once and for all. This means that features such as Hunt (Ranked), leaderboards, and the in-game store. 2K says that peer to peer multiplayer will still be available in Legacy Evolve on PC and all purchased DLC content including Hunters, Monsters and skins will be retained by players.

The timeline of events prior to shutting down is as follows. On 2 July virtual currency bundles are being removed from Evolve Stage 2 and will no longer be availabe to buy. on 3 September the dedicated servers go offline along with the in0game store.

To be clear, Evolve Stage 2 was the relaunch of the game is going away for good and it’s only the legacy version of the game that will be playable. To activate legacy version players need to take the following steps.

1. Right-click Evolve in Steam and select “Properties”
2. Go to the “Betas” tab
3. In the dropdown, select “legacyevolve – The Original Evolve Product”
4. Click “Close”
5. Wait for the game to download the differences
6. Start playing

A list of features that will be availabe in the legacy version includes the following.

Features still functional in Legacy Evolve

• Multiplayer –
  • Peer-to-peer multiplayer: Players will be able to team up and play against each other through peer-to-peer matchmaking. Players are also able to use the party-up feature to create games.
    • Quick Play
      • Hunt
      • Nest
      • Rescue
      • Defend
      • Arena
    • Evacuation
    • Custom games
  • Single Player (solo vs. AI) –
    • Evacuation
    • Quick Play
    • Custom games
  • My2K login access
  • Access to all hunters, monsters, purchased DLC, skins & player badges

What features are going away?

• Hunt (Ranked)
  • Players will still be able to play Hunt by going into Quick play and Custom games
• Player Profile data
• Leaderboards will no longer be populated with player data
• The in-game store will be removed
• The newsfeed will be unavailable
• Player Badges will be unavailable