Evolve Free Weekend

I really wanted to play Gigantic beta this weekend but their registration system seems messed up right now.

Then I saw that Evolve is free this weekend so I jumped into that instead.

I was really interested in this game before launch, but then it launched at $60 plus tons of in-game purchases.  I didn't want any part of that.  And now that I've played it I'm glad I never bought it.

The game isn't that great.  It's ok.  It's not... bad.  It's just kinda another competitive first person shooter.  There is the gimmick of having 4v1 since you have 4 hunters versus 1 monster, but after you get over that the game doesn't have a ton of new stuff to offer.

The main mode is super frustrating.  There's a huge open map, the monster wants to stay away from the hunters while killing random wildlife and leveling up.  The hunters want to find that monster as fast as possible before they level up all the way and become super powerful.  It sounds interesting in the abstract but in practice it means you spend almost the entire game almost getting to engage with each other and then not actually fighting.  Eventually the monster feels they're high enough level and they'll try to engage and kill the hunters.  It doesn't make for a good game mode.

I tried out the other modes and found more to like, but not enough to keep me coming back.  There's an arena deathmatch mode where you duke it out on a small level.  There's a defend mode, which I thought was the most fun, where the hunters are defending objectives and the monster has to attack them.  It keeps the engagement and the action up.  I wish I could have just played the defend mode over and over, but there's no way to select that.  You have to throw yourself into a general "Skirmish" playlist and hope it lands on the game type you like.

I got a couple hours of fun out of Evolve, but I'm already done with it.  You should make up your own mind and try it out, it's still free to play for another day.  Check it out.