Why Evolve Will Fail

I'd like to start by saying that I take no pleasure in making this prediction. I like the work that Turtle Rock Studios does: I loved Left 4 Dead, and it seems that they're applying a lot of the gameplay principles that they perfected there to Evolve. But anyone who seriously played the competitive multiplayer in Left 4 Dead can immediately tell you why the competitive multiplayer in Evolve won't work.

Now I'd like to point out the problem with a question: Is anyone who reads this seriously looking forward to playing as a Hunter, or do you just want to play as a Monster? Of course, everyone just wants to play as a Monster - breathing fire, hurling rocks, devouring people and generally wreaking havoc looks like a blast. Everyone wants to play as a Monster! ...And no one really wants to play as a Hunter.

It was the same problem in Left 4 Dead: No one wants to play as just another jerk with a gun; they want to play as the cool, weird, scary things. When I ended up on the Survivors' side in L4D Versus, I frequently found that all of my teammates simply left the match because they didn't want to be the Survivors. When I ended up on the Infected side, the match frequently closed due to the entire enemy team leaving.

And that was when there was a 50% chance per match that you could play what you wanted to play. In Evolve, there is only ONE Monster per match, meaning that there is only a 20% chance that you can play what you want to play. Unless you have four reliable friends to play with, I predict that the Hunters will almost always be short a few people, which will throw off the power balance of the game and result in the Monster always winning. It just won't be fun, even for the Monster player.

There will be a few dedicated teams of players going on for a long time, but within two months of release, Evolve will basically be dead to the average player. I'd make a joke about "evolutionary dead-ends" or "the survival of the fittest", but I get the feeling that there will be a lot of other smug pr*cks saying the same stuff, and I don't want you to confuse me with them. I see what's coming, and I am genuinely saddened by it. ...Although, not so saddened that I won't gloat a bit when my prediction comes true.

You may be on to something...I'm still looking forward to this game, but I've experienced what you are talking about...I've seen difficulties getting groups of human survivors to stick in a game. Especially when there are 4 infected humans in l4d2...then you can just tear up the survivors so easy...and then nobody would stay in the game.

I'm curious to see how they address this, if at all.

It's not going to fail. It's been too heavily marketed for that.

They should focus on making the best game they possibly can for people playing it, rather than potentially focus on hitting big with grand ideas of wanting it to become some streamable and spectatable E-sport.

We'll just have to wait and see if they can pull off a formula where it's just as fun to play the humans as it is the monsters.

If this is going to be another on-line MP only they ain't getting my cash, to hell with it.

I disagree. Personally, I'm looking forward to that perfect storm of me, my best shootin' partner and a couple of communicative, team-oriented randoms that will be able to roll right over any monster.

As a monster... meh.

Left 4 Dead suffered in the way you describe because the survivors were all identical and the infected were all so unique. The difference here is that the hunters all seem to serve an individual purpose within the hunt. This means that the most likely problem isn't going to be people abandoning the game because they aren't the monster, it's going to be people who are best with one class being forced to play as a less familiar class and the whole team suffering for it.

Of course what you say is possible, but there are a number of reasons you could be wrong and to have hope.

1. I'm sure the devs have realized this especially since MP is the focus of the game whereas co-op was the focus in the L4D games.

2. It's one of those games where if you have 4 people working really well together, they will win the majority of the time. I watched some gameplay months ago and by the 3rd match the 4 humans had already figured out how to work together and beat the monster. This would make people want to play as the humans.

3. There is also the classed based system to consider. Many gamers take pride in being the healer or the tank/sniper etc. If you are playing as the monster you don't really have that much in terms of tactics and variety whereas the human side provides this.

There are also many reasons why this game could fail. Personally I think it will be too repetitive and get old. I also think it will be hard to balance something where the enemy has so much more health than everyone else.

@Indiscrimi: I will not buy this because it seems like a F2P idea and it's 60 bucks

@Indiscrimi: Every character has its weaknesses so NO, not everyone wants to play as a Monster. Personally wont play it, not into thse online games or military shooters. Guess its common sense from previous games with such structure.