Last week I had the chance to play Evolve at Gamescom 2014. The game is announced as a ‘new form of multiplayer’, developed by Turtle Rock Studios & 2K Games. In short, the game features different monsters that get a chance to unleash their fury on hunters tracking them down and trying to kill the creatures.

At the time of writing, the game consists of 8 hunters and two monsters and you can play around on 2 maps – all more to be announced. The announcement on E3 only consisted of one map that was already playable but at Gamescom a second one was announced. We got to play on this new one which has a distillery theme to it.

One of the key features of the game is the endless replayablity with mixing and matching the hunters and two monsters – Goliath and Kraken. Goliath’s the big brute who spits flames, throws rocks, can climb almost every surface and masters leap smashes. Kraken can fly, shoot dark enery waves and strike hunters with lightning.

If you are playing as a monster you have to kill all hunters to win the game. You can devour hunters and wildlife to regain your shields and evolve into a bigger monster with new abilities (leveling system). Regaining health is not possible as a monster so it is important to get those shield maxed up before engaging in a fight with the hunters.

The hunters come in four classes – trapper / medic / support / assault – and each have 2 different characters.

Trapper

-> tracks the monster and contains it so it can’t flee

Griffin has sound spikes and can precisely tell where the monster is. The only way to counter this as a monster is to get sneaky – but you risk getting spot – by walking really slow. Griffin can also trow down a forcefield so the monster can’t escape by ground. Maggie with her pet trapjaw daisy hunts down the monster to give you a head start in finding the monster. You can also use her harpoon to contain the monster and hold it from fleeing on you.

Medic

-> keeping the tank alive and minimising damage

Vall is an active healer who’s able to heal targets from a distance with his healing beam but can also slow the monster down with his sniper rifle. Lazarus is a stealth medic who’s able to resurrect hunters while the monster isn’t activly hunting the medic. In monster role you might think you killed a hunter but sooner or later he will be revived by Lazarus.

Support

-> gives a tactical advantage to the fight

Bucket controlls a gun that’s triggered by motion, making it very hard for the monster to hide in places without checking for these kind of traps. His counterpart is Hank who can shield anyone or call on death from above to damage the monster heavily while he is pinned down.

Assault

the damage dealing class we can trust on

Hyde uses toxic grenades and a shield; Morocov puts down arc mines and uses a flamethrower to make close combat more intense.

Evolve brings a fun and challenging fight to your home. It is not only an action game, but a game where you have to carefully plan ahead and invent good strategy to wipe out all hunters/the monsters to win the game. Each game is different and lets you get familiar with new features, abilities and roles you can try out later in the game.

More information on Evolve website. The game will be released worldwide in February 2015 on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.