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Evolvejust leveled up.

The 2015 game from Turtle Rock Studios is entering into what the developer calls "Stage 2." That means a lot of different things, but the biggest change of all: Evolveis now free to play in beta on PC, with console versions to follow once the beta testing concludes.

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If you're not familiar with it, Evolveis a competitive game that pits four distinctly different hunters against a large, powerful monster on the surface of an alien world teeming with life.

The monster has a large pool of health and a range of abilities that you can upgrade -- or evolve-- as it feeds. Meanwhile, each hunter fills one of four roles -- Trapper, Medic, Support and Assault -- that define their weapons and gear.

The game was criticized when it launched for a variety of things. The progression system for unlocking new hunters and beasts was very restrictive. Playing with anything less than a full group tilted the balance toward the monster.

It was also just a confusing release, with three different editions and an unclear path to post-release content. Studio founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb referred to the launch as a "DLC shitstorm" in a letter announcing the Stage 2 changes.

"The DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience," they wrote.

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Stage 2 changes up some of the game's most basic rules for monster hunting, including one that gives all hunters -- not just the trapper -- the ability to create a temporary arena that traps the monster in a small enough space to fight it.

The revised Evolvemakes a bunch of other changes that all seem to orbit around the same, basic idea: make the game more accessible.

While this doesn't necessarily mean a shift away from Turtle Rock's earlier esports push for Evolve, it's no longer the focus for the studio, Stage 2 lead designer Brandon Yanez clarified in a statement provided to Mashable.

"There’s still that place where if you want to play ranked games and go competitive, that is cool because Evolve still has all of that," he said.

"That’s not a focus for us right now. Our focus is getting as many people as we can to enjoy Evolve. With the changes we made, it’s a little more of a lighthearted pick-up-and-play experience, but we still include spectator mode and ranked play in Stage 2 at launch, so the tools are there for competitive players to run with."

You can read more about the significant gameplay changes in a new update from Turtle Rock. If you purchased the game at any point before the July 7 free-to-play beta launch, you also enjoy a variety of "Founders" benefits that you can look at right here.

Evolve's Stage 2 is going to remain a PC-only change for the length of the beta. Once it's done, Turtle Rock confirmed that the free-to-play approach will migrate to the console versions of the game as well.

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TopicsEsportsGaming