STACK NZ Jan-Feb #59

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FEATURE GAMES visit
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T here are games that require time to
reveal greatness. Initial cynicism
can often be ill-judged, as the
quality of a title becomes apparent
the deeper you venture within. And then
there are the games that feel great from the
moment you press start on your controller.
For us, Turtle Rock Studios’ Evolve falls firmly
in the latter. From our first look at the game
over a year ago – when the studio brought it
down under on a press tour (for once,
Antipodean journalists were among the first
to play it) – we knew the studio were sitting
on something special.
For the uninitiated, Evolve is a four versus
one co-operative shooter where four players
team up to form a group collectively known
as the Hunters, who hunt a monster played
by another player. Set on a planet called
Shear, the sci-fi-themed game took out
Game of the Show at last year’s E3, and won
multiple awards at Gamescom.
“With Evolve, every match plays out like an
epic boss battle with the difference being, of
course, that the monster is being controlled by
a human,” says Mike Boccieri, producer on the
title. “So unlike every other boss battle game
you might have played, where you develop
your team and what strategies to use to take
down a specific boss, that’s really not possible
when the boss is being played by a player.
This obviously results in no two matches ever
being the same.”
It was Chris Ashton, co-founder of Turtle
Rock, who originally conceived the idea for
Evolve. “The game originally came about
through a process of experimentation, and
these were actually ideas that Ashton had been
bouncing around for a long time,” Boccieri
explains, “but he never had the technology at
his disposal to be able to make it a reality.
“So over the years, working on games like
the Counter Strike franchise and Left 4 Dead,
it reignited the passion behind this idea – in
particular in Left 4 Dead, the tank battles really
provided a proof of concept that the 4V1
intense boss battle was a super fun idea. The
tank battles are one of the really memorable
moments from the game that stand out, so
that actually brought the idea he had behind
the concept of Evolve back to the forefront.
“When we started working on it in early
2011, the core of the game back then was the
mode that is now known as Hunt; the conflict
between man and monster, where the hunter
becomes the hunted. It’s the excitement of
turning the tide when the monster starts to
evolve to become stronger. That gameplay
dynamic throughout the match, where running
away eventually changes to become a game
SUMMER EDITION 2015 JB Hi-Fi
After a 2014 delay,Turtle Rock Studios are ready to release their 4V1
shooter, Evolve. STACK spoke with producer Mike Boccieri.