Evolve - What Happened?

[@Lanipator]

I loved this game. Shame how it Happun

[@MattMcMuscles]

I also played it for a bit! I really liked the concept.

[@homerhat420]

Bet you pre-ordered it too

[@kanon1295]

honestly same, i genuinely hope some sort of spiritual successor or sequel happens

[@adwaitprem2158]

@@MattMcMuscles When are we getting crackdown 3 wha happun?

[@RasenShot]

Holy- I didn't expect to see this man here

[@QuintessentialWalrus]

6:33 As a Source modder, I can confirm the Source Engine is not good at making outdoor environments. Or indoor environments, really. All it's good for is making you cry at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday trying to figure out what the hell a func_areaportal is and why it's crashing your game.

[@Sonichero151]

It gets worse when you try to become a source filmaker..... just ask LazyPurple..... he still wakes up at nights screaming in a cold sweat over wrangler lasers being pink

[@TakadoGaming]

I’ve done some mapping for TF2, and the Hammer map editor for Source is a nightmare to use lmao

[@elecman748]

Because of 3

[@christiancinnabars1402]

I always loved it for its user accessibility, but that's primarily due to Valve themselves providing the kit for it to the general public. On its own, it's a early 2000s redux of a mid 90s engine, coming with all the faults and limitations of those times. I just wish there were more companies that would give the public access to some of their engines without expecting monetary compensation.

[@oopsy444]

For real. Ive used the source engine for like 2 mods and 1 game attempt. I hated every moment of it. One of the worse things is how floors and other things don't always connect right leaving very tiny gaps or objects stuck inside each other causing issues with collision.

[@AllTimeScary]

To be fair, Evolve was a fantastic game that was a ton of fun. The biggest issue was 2K's meddling and their forced microtransations. They had something like 3 seasons worth of dlc, hundreds of skins, etc. It was such overkill and it fractured the player base pretty badly. I miss playing Evolve. It was a special little gem now left to the memories of those who played it. RIP.

[@hadeZgaming69420]

Evolve is still one of my favorite games to this day. Glad i played it but damn i wish it lasted longer and 2k was never a part of it.

[@whatznew8008]

I- miss it

[@HL3AlcAida]

Yes felt so also. Instead of tons of Skins etc they should had brought out really different maps like an indoor Labor Complex or so. And some new missions with different Gameplay. But the Game was really fun with a squad but then after a time it got boring and when we got a new guy in the pc game group we dropped the game because he could not play with us because of the player limit.

[@wafflecon6029]

GUESS WHAT BUDDY EVOLVE IS BACK ONLINE

[@okagron]

I wouldn't call broken, unbalanced and ultra repetitive game as "fantastic". Microtransactions weren't the sole reason this game failed, but the fact that it had next to no content and what it had got old really fast.

[@javonyounger5107]

There may have also been the fact that Evolve is a more niche game than they were hoping for. Perhaps if someone made a similar game with a much lower budget, it would be sustainable rather than expecting it to be a AAA block buster and pumping those kinds of funds into it.

[@Beetlemeyer]

See: Dead by Daylight

[@IAmAnEvilTaco]

Friday the 13th, and it was bad ass until the lawsuit ruined it.

[@wilmagregg3131]

honestly no the problem was no progression basically EVERYTHING was locked behind super expensive microtransactions so after you play a game with each monster theres no real reason to keep playing they only began to fix this literally months before the final end

[@somerandomguy9891]

@@Beetlemeyer 5 fucking years and still going...sometimes I scratch my head again... And this is the game where the crossover between silent hill and resident evil happens... Who the heck would have expected this?

[@phabiorules]

I find it interesting how the idea was started due to the fact that they both knew hunters who didn't play videogames. I think an issue they had was they thought "here is why I don't like hunting, and here is how it can be improved" instead of wondering "why do these people like hunting, and how can we incorporate that into a video game and still make it fun?" Honestly, I think monster hunter does a better job at combining those feelings than evolve does.

[@pdb189]

Wow...two days in and that T-Pain CoD clip is already iconic.

[@plasmaoctopus1728]

I see why he has pain in his name. Do you think it hurts us or himself more?

[@KiomonDuck]

@@plasmaoctopus1728 us now, him later.

[@morbidslayer666]

As soon as I saw that clip I had to get down here to see what it was. A true modern classic.

[@Klatchan]

Kind of a shame... T-Pain seems like an alright guy.

[@nachos1162]

"we made it modular so we can just make and add stuff at will!" So... Like every game since the 360?

[@Gohka]

I do love it when game companies give us that as some kind of innovation in gaming. Like EVERY game has patches and expansions now and even when this came out it was still most games. When are marketers gonna realise that trying to sell a game because it has a feature that not only every other game has but we EXPECT from our games now isn't a selling point at all.

[@emwZEEK]

Not exactly. If you take their comments at face value they made the game to be easy to edit and add to "existing" content rather than just bolting "new" content on to the game. An example could be making the maps change with real world seasons. During real world winter perhaps all the maps could have been snow covered with new wildlife that migrates in only during that time. The way "every game since the 360" would handle that scenario would be to just create an entirely new map. Or rather they wouldnt even bother to do seasonal events as it wasnt worth the investment. Their words were more in line with how fortnite changes their map with the various events or how FF14 did a complete overhaul of their game. basically its not about "just adding stuff" its about "how they are able to add stuff" and the structure of the code they made to allow it. Obviously they never took advantage of any of that in practice, but who knows what could have been in a better timeline.

[@jakeharman1592]

@@emwZEEK that doesn’t seem correct because they said they would have patches completed within in 24 hours of a reported issue but would then take months to get that out to the public. If they were speaking about the patchability in that quote, then wouldn’t the patches have actually worked quickly?

[@emwZEEK]

@@jakeharman1592 that's not exactly what I was talking about but if the patch was complete from my understanding that means it was already working and integrated within their dev build. Moving it from dev to public is like a bureaucracy thing.

[@GenerationWest]

I have a friend who would defend the game up till it's dying days, now looking at it... I can see the appeal that was there, but those microtransactions we're just GODDAMN AGGRESSIVE. Good thing Back 4 Blood came out, with none of that drama, because this would've been another sad story.

[@Sonichero151]

It's genuinely a Nice story. Turtlerock got absolutly trashed by 2k making them do all that Microtransaction bullshit and without it, they got to make a newer left 4 dead that looks, plays, and feels pretty well.

[@Zashzila]

Bruh there are games out now with twice the amount of shit.

[@noxcure]

Back 4 Blood isnt any better

[@psinbeast]

GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE THAT'S ONE OF THE WORST GAMES ON THE MARKET

[@salsaucy2547]

So glad Back 4 Blood released in the state it did. Isn't perfect, but what is necessary for a fun experience is there with more to come soon. Absolutely loving the game. Would be a shame to see Turtle Rock take another L

[@Narokkurai]

Evolve literally was a case of "too ahead of its time". Not even by very much, but enough to matter. If it had been designed and released as more of a--dare I utter the words--live service game, it would have had a lot more flexibility to respond to player feedback and criticisms. Not every game needs to be a live service, but I think these sorts of experimental multiplayer games definitely benefit from having as many people playing it as early as possible, so they can give direct feedback about what works and what doesn't. Instead, Evolve ended up being a game that feels fun for the first dozen matches you play, but quickly lost its stream afterwards and never really recovered.

[@Selloca]

Not really micro transactions were more aggressive for a basically a better looking dead by daylight

[@k96man]

You know what they say: early bird gets the worm but second mouse gets the cheese

[@russellbrown6888]

@@Selloca They weren't really microtransactions, they were full-on DLC, and damn expensive at that. If they had been truly microtransactions, as in $5 for a monster rather than $25, then it might have actually kept more of a player base.

[@Darxide23]

If 2K would let the rights to the game go back to Turtle Rock, the game could be successfully relaunched. I'm positive of that. It still looks absolutely amazing so graphically it holds up. Throw some raytracing in for the "gamer bros" and be done with it.

[@justiron2999]

Judging based on how Back 4 blood has panned out I really doubt it.

[@dropbear2616]

Partnering with THQ so close to their bankruptcy is like asking someone to be a reference for a resume while they're on their death bed

[@Mizutsune64]

I remember when this game was announced. My friends and I were thinking this is going to be monster hunter, but with one of us playing the monster. So many hopes and dreams down the toilet.

[@dorkydragon5055]

Deer lurd I would give all of the zenny for that to be a party game mode for monhun

[@williamking1081]

AH man that would be really cool if Monster Hunter did that

[@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r]

I remember seeing this game advertised like crazy back in the day. A shame it wasn’t as polished as it was made out to be.

[@GamerTowerDX]

@@moistloaf3854 i remember a fair share of videos on it back in the day.

[@craigbutler3282]

I remembered following this game’s development all the way until it’s inevitable downfall. I remember most big name KZbinrs playing it once and then not touching again due to the repetitive gameplay.

[@russellbrown6888]

@@moistloaf3854 It was definitely around, I remember seeing it advertised alongside the likes of Titanfall, Destiny (needs its own What Happened episode), Assassin's Creed Unity, basically every major game around at the time. For a while you couldn't log into Xbox without seeing adverts for Evolve.

[@KodeKhot]

I still see a copy of the ps4 game at the walmart in my town. Every time I feel bad or want to think, I go to the shelf where the game is displayed and see it's $40 price tag and I'm left wondering. From what I see the game has been there for a long long long time already. It's funny to think about.

[@strangerlucky5753]

where a re you from because in France i saw like 2 times advertising for this game for game launch

[@christophergarcia9022]

Honestly, the fact it had so much monetization on launch and hearing that the developers knew that the entry cost would be too high really shows that it was intended to be F2P until Executive meddling took action. The amount just never felt normal for a game release.

[@Terithian]

Yeah, it's pretty clear the devs intended it to be F2P from the beginning, with loads of meaningful paid DLC to serve as the monetization. But 2K just had to try and have their cake and eat it too, charging full price for a game with a F2P game's worth of content, and trying to sell all the F2P game's large quantity of DLC right out of the gate too. That's what happens when you try to double dip: people rightly get mad and call you out on it.

[@lildwell2]

I'm the end they got what they wanted. Live service games are just fee to pay games anyway. They used this as cannon fodder to get everyone riled up so in the end it could be normalized. They played the long game. Same way horse armor lead to microtransactions.

[@bruceluiz]

They could allow a gamemode in Back4Blood that allows a team of players to hunt one player-controlled super mutant amidst a sea of other zombies (that could serve as PVE for both sides), with the mutant increasing in power as he kills or survives.

[@J.Hawker]

This aged... Poorly.

[@nguyenquyetthang1326]

This aged like milk

[@bigmac7665]

Idk if it had a rough production but it was definitely a strange sequel, Destroy All Humans: Path Of The Furon would be a game I’d love to see you cover. Love watching your vids!

[@Blue-ke5sb]

I remember putting all my starter points into those electro mines as Kraken and dropping them where the hunters would land and chunk them when they made landfall. I know it was overall useless to do because they would heal off the damage, but it bought me precious seconds in the early game as they had to stop and heal. I even got angry comments about it. I loved this game.

[@witchfynder_finder]

I remember my roommate at the time picking this game up when it came out and playing it for a while. Then Destiny came out and that sucked up ALLLLLLL his time, so I entirely missed hearing about Evolve's later issues. Always wondered what happened to it, to me it felt like it just disappeared into the ether. For a while I thought I'd imagined the damn thing.

[@covenantpig8440]

But didn’t Destiny come out before Evolve?

[@son-dream1766]

@@covenantpig8440 Looking back on it, I think they meant Taken King came out (September 15th, 2015), which to be honest... that's what most people mean when they say Destiny came out that year.

[@warshark13]

Ahhh finally. My absolute favorite game. It was so fun when it worked and horrible when it didn’t. What an amazing concept and the lore was so good. The game was advertised to CoD players when it should have been advertised to strategy gamers.

[@TheAxeLordOfFire]

Curious, anywhere I can look for the lore?

[@baitposter]

Monster Hunter and Natural Selection 2 players (and probably any co-op PvE players) were probably a closer demographic, considering that's the angle I enjoyed Evolve from

[@baitposter]

@@TheAxeLordOfFire Probably one of the wikis, since a lot could be gleaned from character conversations in-game

[@Tjerty]

Lowkey, Evolve did actually have crazy good lore, and fun as hell conversations between the characters.

[@danieltentori7523]

i have been enjoying your videos of " What Happened " weeks ago this is very entertaining for me , good luck for future content ;) keep it up

[@Invictusinferno]

You know, I think with all that we know about how to balance asymmetrical games now, and a new culture of online games being played/ how we all communicate these days, I feel like Evolve could work. I had a TON of fun with this game, even if I was just playing against a Bot Monster with friends. I think Turtle Rock should give this another shake when 2K sells the IP back to them for pennies.

[@brainrich1358]

I could see Capcom messing with this for the Monster Hunter series. 1 player controls the monster and 4 players play as their own hunters

[@emwZEEK]

Gameplay wise evolve DID work at least in the beginning. They didnt have very many, if any, core design failures. 90% of the games problems were marketing related. i ended up dropping the game around the time they started doing massive nerfs to mobility. the single biggest thing that ruined the game for me was when they reduced hunter jetpack speed and duration and also started trying to nerf Wraith due to the sky wraith playstyle/exploit. I think that was also around the same time rockey rolly polly came out. the game never once felt unbalanced to me regardless of which side i was playing on as long as my hunter teammates were competent and we had mics. (until they started nerfing stuff that didnt need to be touched)

[@mydrillasanjay5397]

@@brainrich1358 I would give anything to roll around as a radobaan myself

[@SuddenCruelty01]

Crowbcat's video on evolve is more memorable than the game itself.

[@kaktus2872]

I watched this video a lot

[@oscarzxn4067]

"YOU ARE GIVING ME A GUN THAT'S PAINTED IN BLUE, AND YOU ARE GONNA CHARGE ME TWO DOLLARS"

[@justinduck2953]

@@oscarzxn4067 "this is a gamer's game! It makes you remember why you became a gamer!"

[@drivanradosivic1357]

ew, Crowbcat and his negativity making, Max Payne image using jerkbag.

[@certifiedintellectualjames5053]

Sadly, I can’t remember half the characters.

[@NightmareLyra]

One thing I never hear people talk about with this, is that a TF2 mod called Vs. Saxon Hale already existed years prior and was essentially this, which might have also hurt sales if people were just playing on their own super-moded TF2 servers already

[@benaminnn]

I remember loving this game to death. I mean… I made an entire comic book series on this game a couple years back. It really upsets me to see the downfall and overall failure of this game.

[@Scrittlescrattle]

Yoo what? Can you drop a link? Fanmade comics are seriously underrated, and I loved the concept of Evolve.

[@worldofthought8352]

I'm interested in seeing this comic series as well.

[@TheAxeLordOfFire]

Oooh, I wanna see!

[@Arsaja]

Tactical dot :)

[@benaminnn]

@@Scrittlescrattle I made it a pretty long time ago so it’s pretty bad and kinda cringe. And also it’s on paper. But I can post it on KZbin or something?

[@phoenixlich]

I specifically remember that you had no option to explicitly rule out being the monster. you could say you preferred to be a hunter, but there was always a chance you got monster anyways. and people would dodge the queue if they got monster when they didn't want it. and considering that hunters could easily lock you into an area (many exploits) and at stage 1 evolution monsters lost 90% of the time, it was no mystery why the player base died so quickly.

[@JewTube001]

Personally I loved the hunting aspect. Unfortunately it really confused most players leading to many matches being a complete wash in the monster's favor.

[@jothki]

And then when it went free to play, they just gave the hunters permanent tracking, or something like that. I checked the game out out of curiosity, but learning how to play the monsters felt way too difficult with no room to experiment. It felt tailored towards giving a bad first experience.

[@phoenixblaze5491]

the games usualy went one of two ways: the hunters are a 4 man and stomp because hunters were absurdly hard to kill. Or, which is way more common for newer players, the monsters rofl stomps the game because the medic thinks hes is a dps and trapper doenst know what the dome is.

[@Tjerty]

@@phoenixblaze5491 Yeah, you pretty much nailed the true reason for this game's death. Microtransactions I fully believe were hardly a reason this game died, that was just the reason everyone was reporting. The real reason, as you say, is because most games were stomps. It wasn't appealing to the casual crowd. If just ONE player on the hunter's team wasn't pulling their weight (medic, as your example) then the monster could easily wipe out a team based on that weak link alone. Most people were just buying the game to blast some big monsters and have fun. No one was actually communicating and so tracking and team fighting the monster almost always ended in disaster for people solo queueing. Get enough of those games in a row and yeah, most people won't stick around. I loved this game but I don't think this idea would have ever worked, not even today. The issue wasn't that the game was ahead of it's time. The issue is that _most_ people just aren't going to get serious enough about a game.

[@alfred8936]

Man I love Colville, dude has a great KZbin channel. He did some great work on the writing for this game and it's sad that this is how it all turned out

[@dustymax56]

Hold up, Matt Colville was/is a Turtle Rock writer? He’s one of my GoTos for improving my D&D games. Also I was a launch day preorder-Er of Evolve. The world seemed so interesting. Knowing Matt was involved helps me understand why I liked it so much. (Now do Order 1885 which killed my interest in preordering.)

[@TheSneakyVikingJarl]

You should come by his Twitch channel sometime. He talks about his time at turtle rock a lot. Has even had Phill Robb over a couple times.

[@iBloodxHunter]

He mentions in some of his older videos he did the writing for a bunch of the characters.

[@Trollogrefey]

Matt Coleville was the head writer for evolve yes, actually the lore and universe of Evolve is SHOCKINGLY well fleshed out, easily one of my favorite fictional writings period unfortunately all that stuff was cut short once 2k axed the entire game. It's such a shame, shit like the Mutagen War was some of the most interesting Sci Fi writing I've ever read period.

[@Tjerty]

That explains a lot. Evolve lore was crazy well thought out.

[@theworstisover1323]

I've had this series / channel pop up as recommended for me for a while now so I finally watched an episode just a couple of days ago. I've now watched every single episode in the series! It's amazing! But I'm also super sad it's over! I think I'm just gonna start rewatching them again.

[@rayzorduality2396]

See you next Saturday...

[@princeapoopoo5787]

starts chanting one of us. one of us. one of us. one of us.

[@maskedknight93]

things i would love to see you cover high guardian spice metroid dread (a great game but boy did it went through hell) post launch overwatch (dear god how to kill a game 101) and maybe later , smash ultimate (i swear even if you love or hate it, what they had to do behind the scenes must be a amazing tale)

[@TheAxeLordOfFire]

> high guardian spice I normally hate the anti-SJW crowd harping endlessly on "woke agendas", but good God, HGS was TRASH. Doesn't help the developers were literally misandrists of the highest order.

[@craigbutler3282]

Overwatch is nearly 7 years old, It doesn’t count as a flop when it manages to survive for years with an eSport. It’s only dead now because everyone is just twiddling their thumbs waiting for OW2. OW2 itself could be a video when it finally comes out 50 years from now. Metroid Dread I’d like to see. My friend never shuts up about it.

[@goufr3540]

@@TheAxeLordOfFire After watching several reviews. You could remove all the SJW woke agenda from the series and its still crap due to how poorly animated, voiced and plotted out to be. Lets just say that you will be begging for 4Kids dubs again.

[@lukebytes5366]

@@craigbutler3282 their attempts to make it an esport completely fucked it over though. They failed to make the balance between being fun to play, fun to watch, and being balanced in general. and don't even get me started on GOAT'S. (6 characters are meta and nothing else divison) Among other questionable decisions, even if it wasn't dead in numbers, it cultivated an incredibly toxic community. Even if OW2 was the nail in the coffin, it takes an insane amount of effort to make a community that straight up hates your game.

[@troin3925]

@@goufr3540 Honestly, I would rather see a Ghost Stories dub for High Guardian Spice.

[@editedmemory7579]

Great video, but I think it's missing 1 thing: I've always felt that a major reason for the rapidly dwindling player base was Turtle Rocks decision to focus on the competitive (esports) audience. They became obsessed with numbers, like wanting a 50% monster win rate, without realizing that for every monster win, you have 4 players losing. Later 4v1's fix this by allowing some people to survive and having varying levels of "winning" (I sacrificed myself so you could escape! Aren't I great???) Also, many of the monsters... the Kraken in particular...broke A LOT of the hunters. Having a flying monster made any ground based weapons such as mines almost completely worthless. You had to have the right load out for the right monsters...yet you never knew what you were going up against in advance.

[@mono-watermatt3894]

As a Wha Happun fan AND a Matt Colville fan, I’ve been waiting for this particular episode for a while now. Thank you.

[@WhispyWoods.]

Seriously. Between the insane detail of background and inside information, and the extremely clever and entertaining writing how does this channel not have millions of subscribers?!? Seriously.

[@toyjesus]

Evolve was my favorite game when it came out. The thing that made me stop playing was the 4 separate loading screens between matches.

[@erhiueQWEF]

Whoa, that'd piss me off too!

[@Tjerty]

The only load screen was between Character select screen and the game actually starting.

[@toyjesus]

@@Tjerty the game would have a 3 minute search for players followed by a loading screen into the character select screen, then another loading screen into the starting ship before the drop, then the fly in animation to mask the final loading of the map.

[@ironfox4990]

This game has ahead of its time, this would’ve done well especially in recent times.

[@ProjectOccasus]

i was in high school when this game came out I think. I remember thinking it was such a cool idea, but a big spend for only multiplayer. I wasn't able to convince enough friends to buy it for something that might only be good for a few sessions with so few monsters available. And that's before I even knew about all the DLC

[@UrsaFlare]

I remember being really excited for Evolve but was too poor to buy it, stopped hearing about it really quickly and when I finally was in a position to buy a pc that could run it the game was floating face down in a pool of it's own vomit. Shame really since it could have had a much more positive run.

[@Inducted-crane150]

Loved evolve so much. Was THE game that actually looked next gen to me when the new consoles were revealed at the time. Its concept was ahead of it's time. Would still love to see a episode on Last Year: the nightmare. That seems to be a failure story based on the developers themselves, not publishers or game stability.

[@Seeingeyepig]

Thank you so much for the effort you put in to each and every video you release. This game has been talked about to death and I still found myself completely engaged every minute of this. Keep up the phenomenal work my friend!

[@leonardchurch814]

I really liked what the game was at launch….and then it went to shit. God what a terrible way to go. If this game was launched as a F2P in this day and age I think it might actually survive.

[@sergeylukin9111]

Pal game survive. i play its yesterday with human team vs human monster. On official game client.The community still play in game.

[@ihavevisionfearme]

@@sergeylukin9111 But you can't buy it anymore

[@sergeylukin9111]

@@ihavevisionfearme Family sharing

[@ihavevisionfearme]

@@sergeylukin9111 Yeah, but you can't buy it anymore, and no one has it In friend group or family.

[@Tjerty]

@@sergeylukin9111 It's a dead game fam you just haven't connected the dots yet.

[@if91100]

I legit miss Evolve. It was such a fun idea, it just needed to be a lil faster and a lil more and it would have been GOLDEN. It really set up the 4v1 template but god... they fumbled so hard.

[@TheAxeLordOfFire]

If I ever succeed with my game development company, one of the things I'll do is create an Evolve successor. Shame, it's not likely we'll get one in the nearby future due to the massive failure scaring off people.

[@if91100]

@@TheAxeLordOfFire Good luck! seriously, it would be great to see that game come back.

[@TheAllenwhitaker]

It's really funny that you post this today because I was thinking to myself yesterday "I wonder if Matt McMuscles has an evolved video?" And I wake up this morning to this treat of a notification. Love this stuff man, thanks for making it!

[@SpottedAlien]

EVOLVE was such a neat idea, and I hope at some time they get to (or want to) revisit it, without having their hand forced into the aggressive microtransactions. ngl, was also pretty bummed it didn't have a proper campaign. Just sort of expected that from the creator of L4D. Hopefully they get to make those monsters again at some point.

[@drivanradosivic1357]

Turtle Rock releasing Evolve with good progression and a Story mode that might be a disguised tutorial for the Hutners and the Monsters would be great, especially if it is not a "needs always online or you don't get to play it" aka if it is a offline mode capability game as well as something you can boot up with friends.

[@yardfowlinc5152]

Ahhh He finally rushes the bull head on Appreciate this episode 👌🏼

[@Metalyger]

Fable 3 would be a solid what happen, you know something was disappointing when even Peter Molyneux tells the press that he wasn't happy with how it turned it. Not a bad game, but definitely rushed and under baked.

[@alicequeenofmadness9995]

Very Very rushed!

[@notmewtwo4044]

He can even get Larry Bundy Jr. To make a joke about him in the beginning. Snice he's been making fun of him in every video he has ever released, I think.

[@lightbluesquid]

Yo, props to you for using Iori's KOF XIV theme. It's soooooo good! Compliments aside, the amount of effort you put into your content is truly admirable! You really are one of the best content creators out there!

[@DirgeTV]

Sooo, something interesting I just found out (ironically in the related section while watching this video): Someone turned back on the Servers, well matchmaking anyway, on Steam for Evolve Stage 2. Not sure why exactly or who but if you still have this game and you go on steam right now (at the time I post this comment), you can play it online. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the console releases from what I hear.

[@eranostal]

Love the fact you included "Scratch" in the list of game engines.

[@joeslickback]

The game that started the whole "Is, is that blue Is that fucking blue It's fucking BLUE. You're giving me a gun that's painted Blue and you're charging me $2"

[@dylantortosa7678]

EVOLVE STAGE 2 AND LEGACY SERVERS HAVE BEEN RESURRECTED. If you have it still or downloaded it previously you can still play the game, and it's slowly rising again. The community is fighting for Evolves right to exist to be playable and not be lost forever

[@brianmcavanaugh]

I love the smooth sounds of KOF as the music bed for this video

[@MorklebBlack]

I was super excited about this game when I originally discovered it was coming, and then saw how it was monetized and noped out of there hard. The basic pack left me feeling like I was missing out on all the cool stuff / monsters, and the full pack was ENTIRELY too expensive. I'd love to play a game like this sometime in the future that isn't a circle jerk of DLC.

[@ADreamingTraveler]

After Back 4 Blood came out it was obvious Valve was the only thing carrying Turtle Rock this entire time

[@LoneWindtheWolf]

i might be the only one to ask this but do you plan to make an episode on Metroid Dread in the future? Don't get me wrong, Dread was never a "bad game" or a "failure", i'm just asking this because i heard it has a very interesting story starting all the way back to the early 2000s, going through development hell and even getting cancelled for years before getting picked up by another game studio and being finally completed this year. I think it would be worth to cover on "Wha Happun?"

[@kennobu8181]

It's a little bit premature, especially with what happened behind the scene in Mercury Steam is still not 100% known (especially about the working conditions that were alleged) and they probably are the biggest factor in the released game.

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

"what if we made a hunting game where the prey could fight back and was big and threatening?" Then you'd be making Carnivores, which I understand hasn't been the biggest franchise ever due to a number of terrible decisions, but is an extant thing that has a lot of fans

[@jumnei5159]

Monster Hunter...

[@thekydragon]

Little V Mills covering a Motörhead song that was recorded for pro wrestling wasn't in my mind when I started watching this video, but I'm so glad that it happened.

[@timotei360]

Because... EVOLUTION IS A MYSTERY

[@luisbo3]

This one cuts deep, i am fan of L4D and Matt Colville and really rooting for this one to succeed

[@angelmendez1223]

So I looked it up servers went back on and there's been 2,000 players in the last 30 days that sounds good

[@SnowyNowak]

I remember how someone I had on Discord at the time was so hyped for this game. Like, he'd talk about it daily. Then it came out, he mentioned it another couple days after, said he really liked it and then never mentioned it again.

[@thechevyferrari9559]

I played this game when it went free to play in Stage 2, and it was pretty fun! I hope a reincarnation of this game comes out soonly. Also, if we’re talking about games that were fucking fun to play but got business planned into the toilet…. I’m curious if there’s something for Lawbreakers.

[@morganr2511]

The Scratch joke at 6:19 is subtle yet hilarious. Love it.

[@Mistheart101]

20:37 Ohhh my GOD I want a "What Happened?" on Dead by Daylight so badly. Or I guess it'd be a "What's Happening?" since the game, somehow, is still kicking.

[@iwakeupandboomimarat]

i havent played it since like 2019 wtf is happening with it 😭

[@Mistheart101]

@@iwakeupandboomimarat i mean for starters there's the "their Cenobite model is being used for NFTs" thing, but also the game just kind of falls apart every update

[@iwakeupandboomimarat]

@@Mistheart101 im sorry but 'their cenobite model is being used for nfts' is so fucking funny 😭😭 but yeah honestly i havent seen many people playing it recently, even when i tried to join matches when id briefly redownload the game id have to wait for like 5 minutes just to get other players

[@alicequeenofmadness9995]

@@iwakeupandboomimarat Well, their selling Pinhead as both DLC and an NFT, Hacking has gotten out of control to the point where people stream themselves hacking and breaking the game in every match they're in, Nurse is still bugged, Hex Totems still exist, They have released TWO broken/un-finished chapters where the killers don't work right, They have been nerfing and buffing extremely random perks that no one asked for, Bugs take forever to get patched but as compensation there is loads of new skins you can buy, and so many other things!

[@iwakeupandboomimarat]

@@alicequeenofmadness9995 im surprised the holders of pinhead/hellraiser even allowed him to be sold as an nft tbh, but i guess they dont care as long as they get money

[@Serbian_Potato]

15:08 Wow that's James and Sly, what a throwback seeing them together

[@DarkQuill]

The environments and the way they change depending on the map modifiers chosen are absolutely fantastic, and could have made for a really awesome semi-open world singleplayer or co-op game about trying to save the research bases and such from monsters both big and small. But apparently if it's not competitive, it's no good. So did TurtleRock learn from their mistakes with Evolve? Lmao no. B4B is also a full price game with MTX out the wazoo, and blocks any progression earned playing solo, so you HAVE to play competitive multiplayer. And instead of refining a gameplay loop they were already familiar with, it gets sprinkled with additional layers of unnecessary randomization that is very clearly there to drain your real world cash. B4B isn't dying as fast as it should, hopefully there will be a straw that breaks the camels back and sends it into a death-spiral, and TurtleRock gets the wakeup call WITHOUT misinterpreting it a second time; people don't like excessive DLC/MTX. Peddle as much cosmetic crap as they want, but when cash influences the gameplay, they're setting themself up for failure. The extra money scraped together might not be enough to break the fall. Might seem cruel to wish bad tidings on them, but I hope B4B tanks soon and the studio goes on to make good games instead.

[@Mirthful_Midori]

I agree for a couple of reasons. The first is that apparently Valve did a lot of, if not most of the work on Left Four Dead and all of the work on Left Four Dead 2. The other is the micro-transactions. As you already said, that's pretty a pretty clear indicator they failed to learn from Evolve's failure. It's also more than enough reason for me to avoid the game on its own, because the kind of micro-transactions they're going for with it are completely asinine.

[@kamiwriterleonardo6345]

Thing is, I loved seeing Evolve Gameplays when I was a child. It was so damn fun seeing hunters trying to take down a hulking alien beast. I still think the core concept should get more games with better management, it would make for a great success in my eyes.

[@sponsorskipman1971]

Crowbcat made me realize how much of a flustercluck this game was.

[@brocrew4191]

@@Poever He recently hit us with a sequel to his Brilliant Fighting Game Community video. Was a fun one but his god tier videos will always be the two VGA Supercuts for 2016 and 2017 with the Kojima stuff

[@JakeRanney]

Crowbcat could make anything look bad, he just cherry picks bad clips and obviously never shows anything good. Unsubscribed after his CP2077 video

[@SouthByTheBarn410]

​@@JakeRanney I personally loved the game, I played it every day and bought all the DLC! Sadly... well ya know.

[@meat7490]

⁠@@JakeRanneythe clip of the car exploding by itself wasn’t even a bug, it had a bomb detonate as soon as the man entered it. The comments section continues to cope that the game didn’t kill the company despite cdpr learning and acknowledging they’ve messed up lol.

[@lildwell2]

This game was a sacrificial lamb. It took the grunt of anger about the current DLC model so major studios can pull back just a little and seem like they did something good. Next thing you know they pushed deeper down the microtransaction rabbit hole and nobody notices.

[@snuggery6486]

Just yesterday I was thinking "when is he going to cover evolve?" and You didn't disappoint Matt

[@T3DNR3D]

Evolve is the one game I bring to my friend's and I annual LAN event, where it's an absolute shit-ton of fun. It's really hard to get it up and running, but everyone really enjoys it in that particular setting. Tragic that the game just didn't last due to bad decision after bad decision.

[@FracturedDMR]

I do really mourn how this game went down, I remember playing it when it first released on PS4 and having a blast! Seeing the concept art and reading the interviews from the gameinformer. It's one among a handful of games I legitimately had hope for, my only hope at this point (cheap as the idea is) is that the game gets a remaster bundle not unlike the borderlands handsome jack collection. Something that gives you the game AND DLC without a fuss.

[@shadedraxe1430]

This is one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time. What happened to it really broke me. This video is probably gonna make me cry.

[@Hambo325]

I absolutely loved the monster designs. That's what hooked me initially. I actually got it free with games with gold on Xbox I think. I really hope we get more big monster games. Despite it being such an obvious choice, there isn't a lot of games in that market. Dude, I'd kill for a new rampage. Just about anything with a Kaiju will do, I need my big monster fix

[@theeatenbread3211]

Same I would kill for a monster game aswell

[@archangel43oneg91]

I remember playing Evolve. I thought it was really fun, and then I saw all these different monsters and hunters others were using. I thought, "That's cool! I want to try that". Then I saw the price tags, and I was just really sad.

[@TheKrazyguy75]

14:58: I know that guy! That's Meg Turney's boyfriend! He was on that Trophy Seeker's show with Roy! I think he also did some stuff with some other british guy but TBH they both seemed pretty slow if you know what I mean.

[@nintendolandisbetterthanwi7178]

I remember getting this game as a gift, cause I kept begging for it. I'd watch the trailers for the characters infinite times. I remember none of my friends caring for this game in 5th grade, but I didn't care. I got it 1 day after release and remember looking at the reviews and people not liking it. One review complained that "We could never trap the monster" and that really made me mad, like yeah a game that takes skill is gonna be hard to review a day after release. But I still think this game could have been something special

[@Bamzilla96]

Man, I fucking loved Evolve. It absolutely broke my heart when the game got axed.

[@AndresVedits]

I absolutely loved evolve. I was so sad when the game started falling apart. The game focused too much on money which i feel led to its downfall. It brought us asymmetrical gameplay that I'll always appreciate.

[@TheArkhamLantern]

I don't know if it's worthy of a "what happened " or not but I'd like to hear some kind of retrospective of Arkham Origins. It was always treated like the bastard child when it didn't deserve the hate

[@GDRunny]

I doubt the development is that interesting, its really only treated as the worst entry in the series since compared to the other 3 games it did almost nothing to innovate upon city since it was literally just meant as a filler game to satisfy fans till knight was finished (and also vr I guess) as well as not having kevin conroy and mark hamil in the game (even though I thought batmans VA in origins did great, troy baker as joker, not so much.) Only thing of note that it did innovate on (that rocksteady couldent keep up with) is boss design, its usually agreed that if you buy origins, its either for the SFX or boss battles. They are pretty good compared to "titan joker" or "deathstroke in a big tank"

[@sixflags2008]

Evolve walked so Dead by Daylight could run

[@Sentientmad9m]

I wish dbd had different game modes, like maybe one where you have to solve puzzles to escape or something or find certain objects. The current generator gameplay loop got too repetitive for me

[@Setteri_]

Hopefully VHS does well enough so that DBD gets some competition. The whole genre would benefit from it.

[@lordgardi2263]

I know this is an older video and all, but I hope more channels like this address that people are trying to get evolve back, there is even a discord server around it and they managed to get an online server up for people that do have it to play, if this comment magically gets seen I hope more people look into this and support the return of Evolve

[@bringthemoneyback9983]

servers are shuttin down in july for good

[@lordgardi2263]

@@bringthemoneyback9983 online or offline aswell?

[@bringthemoneyback9983]

@@lordgardi2263 I think offline will be around for a little bit but I know online will most definitely be shut down

[@sen6516]

Evolve walked so other asymmetric games like Dead by Daylight could run. Thanks for the video as Evolve definitely feels like an interesting case study for these kind of games.

[@coldsteel4755]

I had a lot of fun playing this game. It was one of those games that felt good playing a match or two with your morning coffee.

[@montague4931]

"Evolution is a slow, deliberate process that can often take place over the course of several centuries." Take-Two: We ain't got no time for this shit! PRINT MONEY NOW!!!!!

[@khalilmason]

I still think about this game sometimes; One of those under appreciated gems that just fell victim to the times.

[@W0lfenstrike]

I actually played the Stage 2 era and it was good fun for a few weeks... Until everybody started using the Cthulu looking monster and the hunters always died. As a Steam review summarized it, it became always fun for one side, but not for the other. Perhaps with a bit more balance, it could've been a wonderful experience. RIP in pepperoni.

[@MrRezRising]

I remember the writing was pretty good too. Their main writer wrote a lengthy piece online, about 20 pages, giving more backstory. I loved this game.

[@SLASH_Shoji]

seeing Gavin and Uberhaxornova in the interviews was such a blast from the past

[@rowanbrown5541]

God I loved so much about this game (despite being completely terrible at it), the lore was awesome, I had a blast trying out each hunter and monster, how wildlife worked was really cool, but the issues were just too many to hold a player base

[@Shadowslash1]

3:40 The Nostalgia! My 2nd/3rd MH game (I can't tell if thats MHF2 or MHFU), I'm happy enough to let that joke slide. Also, maybe if they added trading cards it would have saved them =D

[@Gohka]

This was a weird game. I remember the mad amounts of hype surrounding it before it came out, one of my friends spent the like £200+ on the deluxe edition, we were all excited to play it. Then I think we played it for a week. It was so astoundingly boring for what it was. Every game felt the same, the maps all looked the same and the balancing seemed all over the place.

[@TheCthultist]

God this one hurts… Dead By Daylight and the Evil Dead game have been great substitutes for it, but nothing has ever fully replaced being able to fly around as a big old weird Cthulhu in Evolve…

[@Hedoro_Kaibyo]

God this one made me sad, I still distinctly remember getting into a closed beta for it but the game literally would not function, I got so upset I didn't touch it for months and then when I came back I find hundreds of pounds of DLC poised at my face like a rocket powered backhand.

[@GabezPolanski]

i think this had the best ad ive ever seen in a youtube video in a while. imma bout to get that blast brigade soon.

[@3ds_fellgod-myhopewillneve617]

"Hopefully, three years from now, right when you bought some game and it let you down, you know, and it didn't live up to your expectations, you can always be like, 'You know what? I'm going to play Evolve.' Because goddamnit that game's still fun." -Some dude with huge nostrils whose name escapes me.

[@TheAxeLordOfFire]

Felicia, ayyyyyyy!

[@georgeashley6643]

I still see pop vinyls from this game very frequently in charity shops and toy stores that they have never been able to sell

[@alexring3214]

Three words: "High Guardian Spice." it really deserves a What Happened.

[@auraaetherbladesigma6939]

Yes.

[@D3D3D]

More like "Why It Happened?". I still can't believe it actually got released. They should have sold it to HBO MAX or some other platform. One if it's biggest flaws was the year it was announced, 2018. That year Netflix began to push hard on Anime and Funimation broke its relationship with CrunchyRoll, and what do they do? They announce a cartoon.

[@Penncentral-vr6mg]

I could see that

[@bearerofbadnews1375]

Yeah I can see it. Knowing how much a disaster it is.

[@bearerofbadnews1375]

Then followed by a RWBY what happun and a Voltron Legendary defender wha happun.

[@Mene0]

The '4v1' into the logo blew my mind

[@PlanetaryPhoenix]

I was one of those people who followed the release and buildup to Evolve extremely closely, and bought it almost day 1 for my PS4. This is no joke the most painful game failure i’ve ever experienced, and to this day i still think about it constantly and am upset by it. As much as i like Dead by Daylight, the slower horror focus just isn’t my thing, and i really wish a much more action focused asymmetric multiplayer game would come out and scratch the absolute crater in my heart that this game left.

[@rorschach1046]

You should look into an upcoming game called vhs, it an 80s horror 4v1 where both sides fight eachother.it seems very promising and will have a price tag of free

[@noregrets3925]

The grabber claw drowning people was my favorite tidbit of information

[@peachhodsun9532]

I was expecting this game to get really big. Such a great idea and I think with a little extra spice this would have been rad... Another incredibly well done video you maverick renegade

[@games4fun575]

As someone who had a ps4 and the two games l started with where AC Unity and Evolve, l really fell in love with Evolve. I played it almost solely online with randoms for 9 months. When it really started to die l played it with the only two friends who would try it with me. It was so fun and i loved the people l played with online. There were very few players who trolled, took comments to far, or even made it to unfun to play. I did everything possible, from getting the plat, to playing way to much against bots on hard, to even being the number 8th Caira and Emet in the world for a time. And as someone who lost there ps4 to age and now plays a ps2- being able to even remember recent games l can say l loved on new hardware is rare. So far it's only FighterZ, Remnant of the Ashes, Evolve, Tekken 7, and Ark. And the only one l really miss is Z now. Evolve was the best fun online game l've played on the new hardware. No sweating for combos, or trying to be annoying, or any real upsetting problem execpt it dying off. Sad that there are so few gamey games these days. Heres hoping the Cosmic Shake is a good time to chill with. Good pick Matt!

[@thengyyy4062]

With the failure of Back4Blood, I think we all should know which of the two companies made the Left4Dead series the classic that it is

[@Matt_History]

I mean the fact that turtle rock's staff refused to leave with their higher ups should tell you all you need to know realistically.