Evolve delayed to February 2015

Evolve, the hotly-anticipated 4-vs-1 competitive shooter from Turtle Rock Studios, is being delayed until February 2015. The news came earlier this week, not long after a handful of select gamers participated in an alpha testing of the innovative first-person shooter. Evolve originally had a scheduled release date of October 21, 2014 but this delay will push back its release at least another four months.

No specific reason was given for the delay but hopefully the time is being used to add more content and polish the gameplay. Turtle Rock, the studio behind the original Left 4 Dead, is well versed in creating intriguing multiplayer shooters and Evolve promises to be one of the most interesting shooters on the market.

The delay, while unfortunate, doesn’t surprise me too much. They only just did an alpha test of the game, which is meant to be a very preliminary version of the final product. With the original release date a little over two months away, a delay seemed inevitable. On top of that, only two monsters have been revealed so far (Goliath and the Kraken) as well as only 8 hunters (2 variants of the four classes), which would not have been much to justify a full-price purchase. Additionally, I’ve only seen two maps so far.

With Destiny out on September 9 and other big titles like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, The Evil Within and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare around the corner, the delay might also have been to give Evolve’s release a bit of a higher profile, as the time around the holidays is usually jam-packed with new releases while big, new releases after the holidays aren’t as common.