Despite having to ship a flawed product that was Evolved, Turtle Rock Studios live on to fight another day. In a Gamesindustry.biz interview they have revealed that they are now partnering with Perfect World to release a free-to-play co-op shooter that’s set for release in 2018. No other details are given aside from a dark fantasy theme, but it’s good to hear they are now working on something new.
In the same interview, Turtle Rock co-founder Phil Robb shared his opinions of the free-to-play and the standard $60 USD product model.
“If I was going to boil down our key learnings into one thing, it’s that the triple-A boxed product is just not a welcome home for independent developers.
It’s now a nearly impossible proposition, actually. The major publishers out there are spending [over] $100 million on developing the next iteration of a franchise… and at the same time, they are increasingly hesitant to spend on new IP.”
Clearly the model Evolve (pictured above) was using did not fit for a $60 tag, especially when they were dangling too much cosmetic DLCs on launch as well. As such, Robb has now have more faith in the free-to-play model. In another quote he said this:
“We can’t overstate how helpful [free-to-play] is to us as developers. It’s a direct line toward taking the game that we wanted to play when we first started working on it and ensuring that it will be a game that our community wants to play for years to come.”
Let’s hope Turtle Rock’s new direction pays off this time. The team did a great job of handling Counter-Strike, then later created Left 4 Dead, when they were under Valve. We will have to wait until next year the least to see any info of their new game.