Turtle Rock's Evolve is only a few short days away from release at this point and for those of us who enjoyed the Alpha and Beta of the asymmetrical shooter/stomper, that's pretty exciting.
What's been especially interesting about this game though, is how open the developers are being with fans about its developmental process. Along with all the hype for the game's final features, extra monsters, characters and everything else that's coming when it's released on February 10, Turtle Rock has also been showing off some of the game's 'evolution' on the official forums.
Evolve, as a game concept, started way back in 2010, where Turtle Rock pitched the idea of mismatched teams re-enacting the boss fights from our gaming history, but in a solely multiplayer focused setting. From the get go the developers wanted to stress team work vs brawn and cunning. This catered to lots of different player types and allowed them to create very unique characters and monsters for people to play as.
It also eliminated many of the problems with games of old: no weak spots or predictable patterns of character behaviour, an emphasis on player skill rather than level up mechanics and an exciting redistribution of power as the match continues.
These are aspects of the game that have been maintained through its entire development cycle, but not much else has. For example, while Goliath might have been the first and only monster we heard about for a long time, Turtle Rock worked on its concept for years, alongside the original designs of its brethren monsters, the Kraken and Wraith.
Initially, they were the Scorpid, a large, two handed, crab like creature with multiple appendage options; the Grounder, a mixture between a squid and a 'prawn' from District 9; and the Teleporter, which looked like a much more humanoid version of what the Wraith would become.
Check the gallery above for early concept designs of each of these beasts.
THQ was the big pitch for Evolve and despite the developer's laptop failing mid-presentation, they were able to get the concept over to the now defunct publisher by showing them slides on an iPad and talking it through manually.
One idea that ended up on the cutting floor quite early, was a new way to implement achievements. Instead of the standard "you killed X of Y," and some Steam or Xbox Live points, you would instead receive an updated field guide as you completed objectives. While they might be quite typical, they would give you advantages in certain scenarios, much like the level up-unlock boost we have today. Unfortunately, while the idea of a field guide featuring information about the world was interesting, due to the multi-platform nature of the game and the fact that each one requires its own achievement focus, the idea was dropped.
Another monster that never made it to the final game was the Velvet Worm. It's one of the more interesting monsters that have been talked about potentially being part of Evolve, as it was supposed to be able to tunnel under the ground and slither along it. While its movement may have inspired the Wraith's method of writhing back and forth just above the ground, actually making it slide around the environment proved too difficult to achieve and it too was scrapped.
Perhaps the most interesting – and one that could potentially still make an appearance – is the Spawner. This monster would begin the game as a colonist, with several strange growths on its body. Before long though, they would stage up into a monstrous brain like protuberance, floating above the ground with the vestigial husk of the original host body dangling from its centre.
One thing that did make it to the final game of course, was the concept of character classes. Initially, hunters had been average Joes, with no class specific abilities, no class specific equipment and little to differentiate them in terms of gameplay. Players could take whatever they wanted with them and be damned if they brought the wrong stuff. This was much like the way Turtle Rock had handled Left 4 Dead, but that game is a perfect example of nothing in the character selection (or to some extent weapon selection) that really feels like you're making much of a difference. In Evolve though, with specific classes and weaponry, it very much matters who you play with.
However the way the hunters made it down on to planet Shear did go through a few evolutions of its own. For a while, the dropship would land on the ground, with players running out the back as the ramp went down. However it quickly became apparent that a wily monster could simply wait for it to land and charge up the ramp, trapping everyone inside and killing them in short order.
To fix that, Turtle Rock switched to having small "gondolas," that would lower the players to the ground separately. Ultimately though it settled on having people skydive in. This however meant the team couldn't do equipment choices on the ride down, that had to be handled before hand.
Of course with character classes having equipment locked, that became less of a problem.
A lot of the work during the first few years of development involved learning CryEngine 3, which for Turtle Rock was an entirely new enterprise. This led them to try to recreate photographs of certain environments and they often did a bang up job, though much of the early mapping work was scrapped in favour of much denser, darker and gloomier environments. It changed the feel of the game from an adventurous romp through a sunny desert, into a dangerous hunt in a dark and foreboding jungle.
And that's perhaps the biggest noticeable change throughout the developmental life of Evolve. Along with becoming grander in some senses and a little more realistic in others, it changed from being an action title into something that blended that exciting combat feel, with a taste of horror. There's something very tense about being hunted by four other players in Evolve when you first start, but then when the monster levels up and turns on the hunters, it can get quite scary when you have no idea where it might be hiding.
A full look at all the design documents, concept art and changes that Turtle Rock have made to the game throughout its development would take forever and it's already well documented in the official thread here. However I hope you've enjoyed this look at how the game's changed over time.
With that out of the way though, who's pumped for the release?
Image sources: TurtleRock