When that damn Medic kept healing his friends – refusing to allow me to get closer to Monster victory – I did what any self-respecting Wraith would do: I teleported in, kidnapped him, and then warped back to the dark woods with his body in tow and clawed him to death. There. Problem solved!

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Let me explain.Wraith is the third and final out-of-the-box Monster for the 4v1 first-person shooter Evolve , joining the Hulk-meets-King-Kong Goliath and the Cthulu-esque space-squid Kraken, both of whom we’ve already covered extensively. In addition to a warp-and-pounce Warp Blast, a hologram-producing Decoy, and a spinning melee Supernova attack, the Wraith has one hell of a skillshot in the form of Abduction.From anywhere you have line of sight – the farther away the better – you hold RB, line up your target, and release. If you connect, you’ll instantly teleport in, snatch the Hunter in your sights, and teleport back to the place you started. Besides being incredibly disorienting to the other three Hunters, it separates one foe from the pack, allowing you to mercilessly torture your target such that you’ll probably kill him or her before their teammates can move in to assist. It’s a tough move to pull off, but when you do, it wreaks havoc on the other team and swells your ego a few sizes (not to mention, of course, inching you closer to Monster victory).The terrifying tactics of the Wraith are wholly unlike those of the lumbering Goliath and the slow-floating Kraken. Wraith is a menace, albeit one with a much smaller health bar than her Monster peers and far, far less armor. During my few hours playing nothing but Wraith, I quickly learned that anytime your armor drains, it’s best to bail out of the battle, nibble on a few wildlife snacks to replenish it, and then rejoin the battle.That, and the Decoy skill is your absolute best friend. As you’ll see in the videos on this page, I quickly learned that the Decoy is useful both for escapes and for setting up devastating pounce attacks. In the former instance, like when your armor wears down, you can throw down the Decoy – at which point you become invisible, by the way – and then teleport-dash three times with the A button and you’re as good as gone. The Hunters won’t be finding you. Alternatively, you can let the Decoy run a distraction – it’ll attack too – and then press B to sneak, lock onto a Hunter from behind, and press RT to pounce, causing serious damage (which you can amplify with your spinning Supernova attack).Perhaps my favorite part of this extended hands-on session – besides finally getting to test drive the long-secret third Monster – was that I spent the entire time playing by myself. Yes, anything and everything is playable solo, and capable AI will play as the Hunters when playing as the monster, and the other Hunters and Monster if you choose a Hunter (though it’s also worth noting that you can hot-swap into any Hunter on the fly if you’re playing a Hunter in solo mode.So why am I rejoicing that one of the most innovating multiplayer games in recent memory is playable solo? Simple: for all of Evolve’s strengths, I’m not particularly interested in randomly matchmaking with people because of the particular coordination that a successful Hunter team requires. That means it’s appointment gaming with my friends, which isn’t always easy when trying to manage work and family responsibilities.Solo mode solves all of that, and with AI that’s genuinely adept at simulating a human player. Not only did I lose my first two matches to the AI and three of my first five (all, again, while playing as Wraith), but there were even a couple of occasions where my armor got worn down, I thought, “Crap, I’d better retreat!” and the AI Trapper threw down a dome shield to lock my wounded self in with the attacking bots.Another plus to solo mode: practice. Besides the obvious map and mode choices, you can also pick which four Hunters you’ll take on in solo mode. So if you’re like me, for instance, and Lazarus’s resurrect-buddies-from-the-dead Medic ability kicks your ass every time, you can use the single-player experience to train against him and experiment with new strategies to take him down.And so I’ve now finally played the two things in Evolve that I’ve been waiting for since it was first announced: the third Monster and the single-player mode. In fact, I’ve played everything Evolve has to offer, and I’m extremely bullish on it. The fact is, every single time I’ve been fortunate enough to play Evolve this year, I’ve had a blast and the time has flown by. And now that I know I can have that fun without needing to round up other people, it means I intend to play Evolve regularly instead of just “whenever enough friends are all online at the same time.” And with that open beta coming up next month on Xbox One , you’ll soon be able to give it a try for yourself.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan , on IGN , catch him on Podcast Unlocked , and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.