Share. What happens when the Monster gets a minion? What happens when the Monster gets a minion?

As we’ve put more and more time into Evolve over the past six months, we’ve continually been impressed by its growing roster of interesting Hunters, and its currently-known pair of unique and intriguing Monsters. But the big question that’s hung over all of this has been what the game has to offer outside the realm of the traditional Hunt mode we’ve been playing since Evolve’s reveal earlier this year.

Well, we recently had this question answered when we were introduced to a new mode called Nest, which while still being 4v1 multiplayer, throws a wrench in what we’ve come to expect from Evolve, and gives the Monster a handful of friends.

As a Hunter

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Nest’s biggest change is in your primary mission objective. Instead of trying to take out the Monster or protect the generator, the four Hunters are tasked with seeking out six eggs scattered in random spots across a given map. You have 10 minutes to complete your objective, and the locations of the eggs are switched up every round, so you’ll most likely be a bit disorientated when you land on the ground. However, your team’s radar will point you towards a handful of the objectives, which is the moment things get interesting.

Eggs cannot attack, and are defenseless save for some thick layers that can take quite a bit of bullets, fire, and orbital nuclear strikes before eventually being destroyed. Over the course of a few matches of Nest as the Hunters, we had to constantly weigh the pros and cons of how we distributed our resources. If all four of us headed for a single egg, our team could make quick work of it and move on to the next one. However, taking on each of the six eggs one at a time means that by the time we got to the third or fourth one, there’s a good chance that a smart Monster would already be evolved to level 3.

Splitting up into pairs and heading off to opposite sides of the map seemed to work best for us. Two Hunters have enough firepower to destroy an egg in 30 seconds or so, and dealing with two at a time made the match considerably easier. However, splitting up means that if you run into Goliath or Kraken, there’s a good chance that the two of you won’t make it out of the encounter alive.

While the ebb and flow, risk/reward of Evolve felt like it was amplified as a Hunter in Nest, nothing quite matched what it was like to be the Monster in this new mode.

As the Monster

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From reading about Nest from the Hunters’ point of view, you can probably guess that the goal of the Monster is to protect the six eggs. As long as just one of them is left standing by the end of the round, the beast is victorious. But while it might sound like a lot of work to protect six vulnerable points scattered across the map, Goliath and Kraken have a few very interesting things going for them.

First off, the Monsters can see all six of the eggs as soon as the map starts. By knowing how far away all of them are in the world, it makes spacial awareness and multitasking that much easier. But more important than this, Goliath and Kraken have the ability to sacrifice any of the eggs by hatching them. While this might seem like it hurts your chance at survival, the reward to this risk is in introducing a computer-controlled minion that resembles a level 1 Goliath, complete with the ability to pounce, spit fire, and hurl rocks. This creature will roam the map, protect the remaining eggs, and cause all sorts of problems for the Hunters. While a team of four communicative players can take down a minion fairly quickly, if the mini-monster manages to find one or two separated Hunters, the minion has a good chance of standing its own.

For me, Evolve has always been about the risk/reward of your split-second decisions. Nest only adds to this from the Monster's perspective. Sacrificing one of your six eggs will give you an ally, but that also means you're that much closer to defeat.

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I'm sure a lot of you have the same questions I had when I first saw Nest, so here are the answers. You can only have one minion roaming the map at any given time, meaning that you can't hatch six eggs and roll deep with a posse of angry beasts. Once an egg is hatched, it can't be...umm...unhatched. And if the Hunters destroy five of the eggs, you can still hatch the final one and not lose the round. The Hunters can only win by killing the Monster, or destroying all six things, meaning that if the final egg is hatched, the Hunters won't win the round until the minion is gone.

I'm really happy that the second mode we saw in Evolve turned the gameplay and match flow on its head. While I loved everything I've seen so far, I was worried that we'd seen everything the game had to offer. But Nest added enough changes and tweaks to keep my 12-hour Evolve marathon fresh long into the day.

Marty Sliva is an Editor at IGN. He just wants to play another 12 hours of Evolve. Is that too much to ask? Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty.