I’ve been waiting to sink my talons
into Evolve ever since it was first announced. Being a huge fan of the cat and
mouse multiplayer modes in the Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed games, I was
convinced that the experience was practically made for me.
The opening cinematic does a
fantastic job of setting up the context for all the action that follows. You
are shown the desperate conflict between the monster and hunters. The violence
is pretty evenly distributed to both sides, and there’s no clear victor as the
scene ends, highlighting the important gameplay theme of balance that informs
every design decision throughout the experience.
After navigating through some
brightness settings, tutorials, and menus, I was treated to another cutscene
before being set loose into the fray. I inwardly groaned at the idea of having
to sit through even more exposition, but the incredibly straightforward,
well-made introduction to the hunters and their agenda was a nice touch to
immerse me even deeper. (Basically: “We messed up thinking we could colonize this
world called Shear, so now you gotta get in there and clear everything out!”) I
thought maybe the dialogue and mandatory minimal screen time for each character
seemed a little forced. Why do I need to know how these characters are
different? I don’t care about them as “people,” I said to myself. But I soon
realized how differentiating the hunters and giving them unique characteristics
could only add to the experience, taking nothing away.
In my first live match, I set - and
got - my preference as Goliath, the monster. This wasn’t like the tutorial,
however, in which I naturally felt my place as predator, god of Shear’s food
chain. No. When the tables were turned, the feeling of being hunted drove me to
make some impulsive decisions. I ran through the jungle, terrified of what was
on my trail. I left huge footprints, crushed every tree, every creature in my
path and stopped to snack on their life-giving flesh. You can’t evolve into the
next stage on an empty stomach, after all. As soon as I hit the evolutionary
requirement, I eagerly entered my ten second metamorphosis. But my membranous
sac wasn’t enough to guard against the hail of bullets that suddenly slammed
into me. In my rush to gain new power, I hadn’t realized how important it was
to hide before leveling up. Right there in the center of the trail, I was no
longer a colossal, alien hulk of destruction, I was a sitting duck.
So the hunters found me. Their ten
seconds of free shots weren’t enough to kill me though. I emerged, furious, and
took the fight to them. Now it was my turn for some payback. The puny humans
put up a good fight, eroding my armor, diminishing my health, leaving my rough
hide visibly slick with blood and gore. None of them stayed still for long,
expertly firing their jetpacks at the right moments, weaving away and dodging
my attacks. It became clear just how important my peripheral vision was. I
should have kept a closer eye on the HUD to see when my ability cooldowns
reset. I realized a little too late that I couldn’t rely on melee strength
alone when four hunters surrounded me, weakening me, tethering me, leading me
into mines and traps. Those powers are there for a reason. Use them.
I panicked. I turned to run. I
tried to get away. Then the blue dome went up, trapping me. I died like a
coward, shot in the back, fleeing from battle. But I learned plenty of lessons.
Evolution is more than gaining new traits and abilities over time,
strengthening your perch as predator at the top of the food chain. Evolution is
memory. It bonds with your very DNA. As I bled out there on the man-made trail
of my merciless planet Shear, I knew my offspring would carry these lessons.
And so they did. I won my second
round. It might have been because the next team of hunters didn’t operate as
the same cohesive group as the previous ones, but I like to think it was
because I was moderate in my feasting, cautious in direction, selective in my
choice of hiding places, observant, and most of all patient. And quiet. I
evolved easily into stage two before I even saw my hunters. Remembering to use
the sneak ability, I hid in tall brush and watched them run right past me, one
by one. I pounced on the straggler of the pack, pinning him (or her?) to the
ground, completely thrashing the life out of this puny creature before its
pack-mates even knew to turn around. So then there were three. I kept a better
eye on my cooldowns this time, focusing all the power at my disposal on one
hunter at a time - starting with the life-saving medic - rather than flailing
around madly at the whole group. They had no space, no time, to recover with
this mad beast charging right for them, unrelenting.
There’s nothing quite like the
feeling of breaking out from underneath a solid mass of hunters that are trying
to pile on and crush you. I can’t remember any game I’ve ever played that has
captured this unique feeling of triumph so well. The feeling of victory in
Evolve is pure. The natural phenomenon when a predator takes down its prey -
diffused through a highly imaginative, sci-fi tinted lens - has never before
been captured in a video game so well.
