The Evolution of Evolve: Asymmetrical Multiplayer Design

Adam Sessler sits down with the development team at Turtle Rock Studios to discuss all of the intricacies of trying to redefine multiplayer gameplay with Evolve.

This new dev diary series done by Turtle Rock Studios, hosted by Adam Sessler, focuses on all of the innovation and balancing that has gone into Evolve. While Turtle Rock's Left 4 Dead series primarily focused on four-player co-op featuring waves of zombies and thousands of shotgun/handgun blasts, Evolve is a little bit different. Evolve's online matches consist of four player-controlled hunters facing a behemoth-sized apex predator that is also controlled by an online player.

The hunters face the behemoths on a massive map where they'll both hunt the livestock and indigenous life throughout the area, but proper balancing was needed. The hunters must always work as a cohesive unit and should never stray far apart, because the monster could easily finish a hunter off by itself. Throw in a tank, healer, damage dealer and support class, and combat gets a bit more evened out. Not to mention Turtle Rock has made multiple class types for both sides, including an electrical flying monster, a ground-based, fire-breathing hulk and all sorts of different hunter variations.

Pre-ordering Evolve will grant you access to its alpha, which is set to launch soon. Evolve will launch on Feb. 10, 2015 for Xbox One, PC and PlayStation 4.