The end is nigh for Evolve
Dedicated servers shut down in September, Stage 2 to be removed from sale.
Remember Evolve? Turtle Rock's ambitious 4v1 monster shooter is coming to the end of its life, with Evolve publisher and intellectual property owner 2K signalling a raft of key features will soon no longer be available.
In a post on the 2K website, the company announced Evolve's dedicated servers shut down on 3rd September 2018. This means features such as Hunt (Ranked), leaderboards and the in-game store won't be available. On 2nd July 2018, Stage 2, the free-to-download version of the game, will no longer be available on PC.
However, you'll still be able to play Evolve online via the peer-to-peer multiplayer in Legacy Evolve on PC and console. All players retain the DLC they bought, too.
Peer-to-peer multiplayer lets you team up and play against each other through peer-to-peer matchmaking, as you'd expect. You can also party-up to create games.
It's no surprise to hear 2K announce a plan to shut down Evolve's dedicated servers, given there can't be much of a playerbase for the game at this point (Evolve is currently not in Steam's top 100 games by concurrent users).
Back in 2016, developer Turtle Rock announced it would no longer work on Evolve, which launched amid a "DLC s***storm" that "washed away people's enthusiasm" for the game. Evolve then saw a mini-resurrection as a free-to-play game.