It looks like going free-to-play has done wonders for Evolve‘s player base.
Earlier in the week, Evolve, the asymmetrical monster-hunting shooter from Turtle Rock studios that everyone had written off as a failure, returned as a free-to-play title, in an attempt to re-invigorate interest. It certainly looks like it has paid off, as a look at its official Steam stats shows its player count has increased over 15,000 percent.
On Wednesday Evolve‘s peak concurrent player count for the day was a measly 157 (via PC Gamer). Today, it peaked at 25,167. As of time of writing its sitting at around 20k.
To put things into perspective for you, Evolve initial launch peaked at 27,403, meaning that this “stage 2” free-to-play relaunch has almost brought things back up to the initial launch number.
Of course, now all they have to do is keep those players playing, and of course, purchasing DLC and microtransactions.
“Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC s***storm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience,” said Turtle Rock co-founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb
“We want that magic back and we aim to make it happen.”
Source: Eurogamer
