Humans, to borrow a cliché from horror and sci-fi, are the real monsters. It was a phrase that Turtle Rock took to heart when developing Evolve, the studio’s first game after parting ways with Valve following the development of Left 4 Dead. Like that game, this 2015 creature feature had four players, in classic FPS mode, working together against a monstrous foe: a lone kaiju, piloted in third person view by a fifth player. This brought a marked change of pace for both sides – there’s no mistaking the difference between fighting an AI monster and one controlled by another human.
In some ways, Evolve was a high-water mark for asymmetrical design – an entire game built out of the principles of L4D’s Versus mode, which saw players controlling zombies in a first person perspective, coming from a major publisher, 2K. It was successful, too, shipping 2.5m copies in the first few months after release, with 2K declaring it a “key long-term franchise”.
Yet part of the reason it remains a high-water mark is that, today, asymmetry is firmly the exception rather than the rule in videogames – something that might be attributed to Evolve itself. In the end, 2K’s big plans never came to fruition, and the game abandoned its upfront cost in 2016, transitioning to a free-to-play model before being delisted in 2018.
Denne historien er fra July 2023-utgaven av Edge UK.
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Denne historien er fra July 2023-utgaven av Edge UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BONAPARTE: A MECHANIZED REVOLUTION
No sooner have we stepped into the boots of royal guard Bonaparte than we’re faced with a life-altering decision.
TOWERS OF AGHASBA
Watch Towers Of Aghasba in action and it feels vast. Given your activities range from deepwater dives to climbing up cliffs or lumbering beasts, and from nurturing plants or building settlements to pinging arrows at the undead, it’s hard to get a bead on the game’s limits.
THE STONE OF MADNESS
The makers of Blasphemous return to religion and insanity
Vampire Survivors
As Vampire Survivors expanded through early access and then its two first DLCs, it gained arenas, characters and weapons, but the formula remained unchanged.
Devil May Cry
The Resident Evil 4 that never was, and the Soulslike precursor we never saw coming
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare has made a deeply self-conscious game, visibly inspired by some of the best-loved ideas from Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
SKATE STORY
Hades is a halfpipe
SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION VII
Firaxis rethinks who makes history, and how it unfolds
FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH
Remaking an iconic game was daunting enough then the developers faced the difficult second entry
THUNDER LOTUS
How Spirit farer's developer tripled in size without tearing itself apart