Last week, Turtle Rock Studios and 2K completely changed how the 300 people still playing Evolve on PC experience the game. How? They convinced more than 999,700 people to join them.

In the week since the game has gone free, Evolve’s player count has shot up to more than 1 million. According to Steam Charts, the game has peaked at more than 51,000 concurrent players recently. This is up from June’s peak of 234 concurrent users.

Currently, Evolve Stage 2, the game’s latest incarnation, is completely free. Players earn Silver Keys by playing and can use them to unlock hunters, monsters, skins, and perk upgrades. There are no cash transactions in the game at this time.

Right now, the game features four retooled maps and the core hunt mode. The other maps are being updated, and the remaining modes may return also. If you owned Evolve before the Stage 2 Launch, you can always return to the original version by selecting that branch in the properties window.

As a thank you to fans, 2K and Turtle Rock are offering the Blood Eagle skin for Griffin to anyone that logs in between today and Monday. For more on Evolve Stage 2, check out our extensive writeup on the gameplay changes as well as thoughts from the team at Turtle Rock.

Our Take

I have to wonder how many of the people playing and enjoying Evolve for the first time now that it’s free were scared off by the bad buzz around the game during its launch. I’m curious about where Evolve will go from here.

If it finds a loyal fanbase as a free game, we can probably expect some careful monetization in the future. But until the beta period is over, 2K and Turtle Rock are likely to proceed very cautiously. They know they are combatting bad perception from the original launch and aren’t likely to rock the boat.