Evolve originally in development for last-gen, says Turtle Rock boss

Evolve, Turtle Rock’s new multiplayer experience, was originally in development for last-gen consoles, according to studio founder and design director Chris Ashton.

Speaking in an interview with VG247 to be published Monday, March 24, Ashton said the team switched development over to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One so that the team's vision for the game could actually be executed.

"When we were with THQ [at the start of development] we didn't even know when the next-gen systems were coming, so when we started development the idea was to go to current-gen, but as soon as those doors opened it was going to be a really brutal challenge to maintain the type of game we wanted to make," said Ashton.

"There were a lot of concerns [on last-gen]: could we have enough foliage for the monster to hide in? Could we simulate enough wildlife for the monster to eat? - all kinds of simulation tests like how many cycles it was going to take, and how many wildlife we could support.

"We were having to put low-caps on that sort of stuff. It was really hurting the game and I'm not talking about visuals, these are things that are core to the game Evolve, and so fortunately the next-gen systems came out, 2K adopted the title and we all took a look together at both options.

"The right decision was to go exclusive to next-gen to make sure that the vision for the game could actually be executed on."

Evolve is an online multiplayer game, and due to the nature of the Internet, connections can be lost. Normally, such an occurrence is unfortunate for your teammates, as a multitude of things can happen until the player reconnects and logs back in to the game or until a completely different player can fill the vacant slot through match-making.

Luckily, Turtle Rock has solved the problem with a simple solution.

"It's still a little bit early, we're still working that stuff out, but right now for sure AI will take over, and then depending on how you match-made into the game or what kind of mode it is, we'll be able to match other people back into your game," Ashton explained.

"In some modes you'll have control of that. If you're playing friends-only then obviously it's up to you to invite someone else, so we're investigating a lot of options.

"Having the AI be able to take over offers us some flexibility, for example; if you're playing against a monster player, suppose his internet connection goes down or he yanks the cable out of the wall or something, we want to give him the opportunity to get his machine back online and get back into the game.

"So the AI will continue to play and do the best it can in your stead, and we want to hold that slot for a certain amount of time for that guy to come back."

Evolve is slated for a Q3 release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.