Evolve, the 4V1 asymmetrical multiplayer game by Left 4 Dead developers Turtle Rock Studios had a lot of hype pre-release. But gameplay didn’t have a lasting appeal and was hampered with too many paid DLCs on launch. The game saw a significant drop in playerbase, even a move to free-to-play with Evolve Stage 2 could not keep the title afloat.
With Turtle Rock already stopped updating the game, it was inevitable to see this announcement. Publishers 2K announced that dedicated servers for the title will be closed in September 3rd. The free-to-play Evolve Stage 2 on PC will also be shut down. Virtual currency will be ceased from sales starting July 2nd.
However, should you own the retail copy of Evolve both on consoles and PC, the game will still be available with multiplayer albeit using peer-to-peer networking. This version, now called Legacy Evolve, will keep all the content players have access to and paid for, but it will be missing ranked play, player profile data, leaderboards and the in-game store.
Players who purchased Evolve on PC need to activate a separate beta branch on Steam to enable Legacy Evolve. Instructions can be found here.
The writing has been in the wall, but at least 2K is still leaving the game functioning in some capacity- there were people who spent money on this full AAA title after all.