2K plans have announced plans to largely end Evolve, the 4v1 monster-hunting first-person shooter from Left 4 Dead creators Turtle Rock Studios, though it will remain playable in a way. Evolve first launched in February 2015, then relaunched as the free-to-play Evolve Stage 2 in July 2016. 2K plan to shut down Evolve Stage 2 in September, though people who bought the original will be able to play ‘Legacy Evolve’ – without dedicated servers. This is one of those whimperends you’ll hear poets going on about. (more…)

Left 4 Dead and Evolve creators Turtle Rock Studios have announced a new co-op first-person shooter. Ish. A bit. They’ve announced they’re making one. The mysterious game will be fantasy-ish and, y’know, you’ll shoot enemies with your pals and oh, it’ll be free-to-play. While Evolve switched to free-to-play a year after launching but this new game will be designed as F2P from the start, which should work out better for it – and us. We shouldn’t expect this new game until 2018 at the earliest but I’m glad to know they’re still doing their co-op thing. … [visit site to read more]

Yesterday was the very last day Turtle Rock will work on Evolve [official site]. The servers will still run but no future updates are planned. Despite a relaunch as free-to-play in July, it looks like it simply wasn’t popular enough to justify the cost of them working more on the 4v1 monsterhunting FPS. It wasn’t their call to make – that’d be publishers 2K – and so it goes. … [visit site to read more]

Evolve [official site] went free-to-play earlier this month, breathing new life into Turtle Rock Studios’ 4 vs. 1 monster hunter. Riding that renewed wave of enthusiasm, Turtle Rock has added a new version of the hunter Griffin ripped straight from an ’80s scifi flick Electro Griffin.

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Phew, finally we get some new names in the Steam top 10 (previous weeks here’n’that), after the chokehold of the Steam Summer Sale is loosened. I did not expect that number 1, but I really> did not expect that number 10.

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Whether you want to be a monster or murder them this weekend, video games have you covered. Evolve [official site] and Killing Floor 2 [official site] are both holding free trial weekends on Steam right now, giving you until 9pm UK time on Sunday to play the full versions of the first-person shooters. As is customary, both of the games are on sale too, if you turn out to want them for ever and ever and ever until entropy tears Steam apart particle by particle and we all become nothing.

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Fresh out of the Evolve [official site] employment program for shooty dudes and aliens is Turtle Rock Studio’s new Trapper class hunter, a term that in Evolve-speak refers to one of the four characters whose aim it is to slaughter the monster baddie. Meet Jack, a guy who refers to himself as The Jackal and likewise looks like he’s just slipped out from Mad Max casting. It’s some really neat character design.

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Like the great playable beasts found within the game, Evolve [official site] is transforming into its second form. A second season pass’s worth of DLC has been revealed, consisting of four additional hunters and one horrifying-looking monster. The first of these hunters is Lennox, the first female member of the Assault class, who fights in a battle suit she built out of scrap.

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Rumblings in the towers of Take-Two have gotten me wondering about the status of the BioShock franchise. GameSpot are reporting the publisher’s CEO and potential movie villain Strauss Zelnick calling the series “really important” to Take-Two at a recent conference. According to Zelnick, it’s so far sold a whopping 25 million units, 11 million of which were BioShock Infinite.

Zelnick has previously referred to this as one of Take-Two’s “permanent” franchises, alongside Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Civilization and Borderlands. But things have so far been quiet. No future full-releases have been publicly confirmed for the series – Zelnick notes he has no announcements to make of BioShock’s whereabouts. Likewise, Irrational Games are but a memory. Ken Levine is working on something about blocks or something.

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Two free maps, to be precise.

The Broken Hill Mine and Broken Hill Foundry maps introduce two totally unique environments: Mining caves below the planet s surface and a fully industrial setting that has you sprinting down factory corridors.

Maybe you’re running around as one of Evolve’s [official site] big beasties, smashing your friends and shouting RAWWWWWRRRR out of the window to let people know you mean business. Maybe you’re having a great time and can’t wait to stomp around in a mining cave or a factory. But on the off-chance that you’re not already enjoying Evolve, two new maps probably won’t tempt you to join the hunt, eh?

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