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Preview: Evolve

Since Leo’s original Evolve preview I have been desperate to get my grubby mitts on the game. As such, there was no way I was leaving E3 without playing it. The hype created by Evolve is a monster in itself and with my personal attachment to the original Left 4 Dead I was expecting the world; thankfully, that’s exactly what I got. The build at E3 I got hands-on time with was completely different from previous demos as it contained a new map, four new hunters and, most importantly, a terrifying new monster: the Kraken.

The Kraken looks like it was taken directly from one of H.P. Lovecraft’s nightmares and plays very differently to the first monster, Goliath. Goliath wants to get up close and personal and do as much damage as possible while the Kraken is more of a ranged fighter. Keeping a little distance is the key to its strategy making the fact it can fly all the more horrifying. When you’re tracking it you never know what to expect, it could be around any corner or even above you ready for a sneak attack. The Kraken looks to be a little faster than goliath as well but the nature of its speed and ranged attacks make the trapper’s job both more difficult and more crucial than ever, especially with the all important mobile arena.

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The new hunters are more different than I expected. The new trapper, Maggie, rolls into battle with her alien hunting dog Daisy, adding a new dimension to tracking a monster. Hyde, the new assault class, has traded in the lightning gun and assault rifle for a minigun and flamethrower. The new medic Lazarus has the ability to bring fallen allies back to life and then there’s Bucket the new support. Bucket is the character I played as and there are some major differences from the previous support character Hank. The most noticeable of which is he’s a robot. Rather than being able to call in orbital strikes Bucket can detach his head and sent it into battle separately from the rest of his body acting as a recon unit that will tag the monster if he spots it.

As the match began, Daisy immediately started running letting the hunters know what direction we should be going if we want to find the monster. Everyone was trying to find the sweet spot between running as fast as possible to catch the Kraken and being cautious so we wouldn’t get destroyed if it was stalking us or get munched on by the other nasties inhabiting the map. Before we had even seen the monster our hunting coach – yes we had someone there to make sure people were doing the right thing and not just looking at assets – informed us that around the one minute mark the Kraken had already undergone its first evolution and that we were, for lack of a better word, boned. Shortly after these words of encouragement we found the Kraken and began the assault.

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The first encounter was nothing short of a total mess, the trapper was incapacitated and the Kraken flew away while we struggled to organise ourselves and begin the hunt again. After getting everything sorted we started to track the monster again with a little better understanding of each persons roles, attacks and controls. Of course while we were scrambling around like a pack of unorganised noobs the Kraken had managed to fully evolve into its third form before we encountered it again. Bad news for the hunters.

We charged the monster, this time operating as a team rather than a group of toddlers with safety scissors. I set up some of Bucket’s sentry guns just as the arena trap when up and things were looking good. Unfortunately for us the third tier monster is an absolute terror and after a hard fought battle Lazarus was killed quickly followed by Hyde. With only Maggie and myself left we tried to hold of the Kraken and doge its attacks while long enough for our medic and assault to respawn and get us back within striking distance of a win. The Kraken had taken a lot of damage but it managed to take us both out within seconds of each other and take the victory.

There is still another monster to come and new hunters not to mention a single player campaign and other modes before the game is released. Evolve is said to have an incredible amount of DLC on the way which will only extend its life even further. With the release around the corner I cant wait for a rematch, this time the Kraken is going down. Evolve will be available on Windows PC, PS4 and Xbox One on October 21st.


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About the author

Shane Wall

I'm just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe. A game geek turned audio engineer/musician. Shane's life is a delicate balance of video games, music and science fiction.