The timer isn’t up yet, but this message from Turtle Rock about Evolve going free to play on PC is probably what it’s ticking down towards. That’s pretty much what was expected, especially when the game was no longer on sale through Steam.
“Here’s how it’s going to work: We’re going to make Evolve free on PC as a Beta starting on July 7. This is going to allow us to hit our new server infrastructure really hard and we need your help testing,” the statement reads. “We’ll parse out major Beta revisions, updates and features over a period of weeks and months — a plan we’re going to continually communicate here. This allows us to test new features and major changes.”
So, by the sounds of that, the beta may last for a fairly substantial period of time. For those wondering what this new free to play status will mean for people who purchased the game (and Season Pass, etc), Turtle Rock say this: “Anyone who owns classic Evolve will be given “Founder” status in the new free version, and all the content you already own comes with you to the new version. As long as we work on Evolve, we will show our appreciation for our committed fans and early adopters with gifts, rewards, and special access.”
Details about how the ‘free’ game will now be structured aren’t included in this announcement statement, but you’d have to imagine that microtransactions for characters, monsters, weapons and the like will be involved in some form.
The player count chart for Evolve on PC makes for seriously grim reading, so there’s probably little to lose by attempting this change.
