Tema: Evolve

Few independent studios sport the multiplayer pedigree of Turtle Rock Studios. After years of working on Valve's Counter-Strike series, the California-based developer created Left 4 Dead, a post-apocalyptic shooter that redefined cooperative gaming and landed the number-one spot on Game Informer's Top 30 Co-op Games of All Time list. Now the studio is combining its competitive and cooperative design expertise for a new, next-gen only IP: Evolve. Backed by publisher 2K Games, which paid a whopping $10.8 million for the IP in last year's THQ auction, Turtle Rock is taking full advantage of gamers' powerful new systems.

The sci-fi multiplayer-focused shooter pits a four-player crew of alien hunters against a separate player-controlled monster that grows larger and more powerful over the course of matches. Each hunter features its own unique items and abilities, and while the monster may be outnumbered, its size and an assortment of devastating attacks make it a more than formidable foe. Like Turtle Rock's previous titles, Evolve is being built with variety and replayabilty in mind; the result is a novel mix of cooperative and competitive multiplayer elements that's unlike anything we've played before. Our exclusive hands-on time with the game's four-versus-one hunt mode left us with plenty to be excited about, and you can get all the details in this month's issue.

Our 12-page look at Evolve reveals the first hunters, monster, and unique equipment players will get their hands on when the game releases on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 this fall. We also have a wealth of exclusive screens and hands-on impressions you won't want to miss. Check out the cover image below for your first hint at what's to come.

In addition to our first look at Evolve, the February issue features Game Informer's annual Top 50 Games of the Year awards. From the biggest triple-A action titles to the smallest indie experiences, the Top 50 celebrates the best games that 2013 had to offer. We also survey the changing landscape of MMOs in this month's Massive, reflect on our favorite 25 Wii games of all time, and take an inside look at the fall of the LucasArts empire. In this month's previews, we catch up with Ubisoft to see what's going on with The Division, share the latest details about Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9, take Diablo III's Reaper of Souls expansion for a test drive, and check out Hello Games' promising new sci-fi exploration game, No Man's Sky.

To top it all off, we have hands-on impressions of Sega and Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation. Find out how we fared against the series' infamous xenomorph in this promising new survival horror title that may finally deliver the tense cat-and-mouse experience Alien fans have been waiting for.

Print subscribers can watch for their issues to arrive in the coming days. If you subscribe digitally, your February issue will be available later today on PC/Mac, iPad, Android, and Google Play. You can also get the latest issue through third-party apps on Nook, Kindle, and Zinio starting tomorrow. To switch your print subscription to digital, click here, or to create a new subscription to the digital edition, click here.

In addition to our cover story on Evolve, readers can expect a whole month of bonus online coverage here at gameinformer.com, including an inside look at Turtle Rock Studios, video interviews with studio heads Chris Ashton and Phil Robb, and tons more details about the characters and creation of the game. Make sure you don't miss any of this month's features by visiting and bookmarking our Evolve coverage hub – check it out by clicking on the banner below.

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Evolve: Meet The Goliath



A monster movie is only as good as the monster, and that’s often the case with games. In Turtle Rock Studios’ upcoming shooter Evolve, up to four players battle against a powerful player-controlled beast on an alien planet. The company has unveiled the first such creature, the hulking creature known as the Goliath. Read on to learn more about him and some of the behind-the-scenes stories behind his creation.

In Evolve, up to five players battle it out in four versus one matches. If you didn’t know the makeup of the teams, you might think that’s an unfair split. The reality is different. Four of the players take on the role of hunters, who are tasked with defeating monsters on the planet Shear. The lone player is one of those monsters. He starts off in a weakened form, eventually growing in size (and power) by eating local wildlife. You can learn more about the game by watching our video feature "What is Evolve?" The first of the creatures that Turtle Rock has revealed is the Goliath.

The Goliath is, simply put, an absolute beast. He’s a massive creature that’s able to pull boulders from the earth one moment, before sprinting off and springing dozens of feet into the air. He’s at once familiar and deeply foreign, relatable but strange. As it turns out, that’s no coincidence.



“We knew we wanted him to be the first monster that would ever be revealed, and the first monster that players would have access to, and the first one the media would see,” says Turtle Rock Studios head Chris Ashton. “So we wanted it to be recognizable and not too weird.”

The Goliath is their jack-of-all trades, a bipedal powerhouse who crouches into a simian sprint and maintains his balance with a spiked tail. Even in his smallest form, he’s intimidating; at stage one he’s about 10 feet tall, and he only gets taller with each of this three evolutionary forms. “If he stood fully up, he’d be in the 30s,” says character modeler Brandon Yanez. “He’s really big.”

Even though he does have a recognizable form factor, you probably won’t be looking at his back for a zipper. “We didn’t want him to feel like a dude in a costume, we wanted him to feel as believable as possible, and that transcends into a lot of our theory,” says Yanez. “We exaggerate stuff as long as it feels believable.

“It’s not like a Silent Hill kind of horror, but it’s more of a James Cameron, Aliens style, where it just looks cool.”



These sketches show some of the concepts and evolutionary dead ends from the Goliath’s early design.

“Usually in games, there’s a concept artist who concepts things, and then then it’s given to the modeler like, ‘Build this, just build this,’” says Ashton. Instead, Turtle Rock says it takes it’s taken a more collaborative approach to Evolve’s character design.

Yanez says he immediately began modeling the Goliath after seeing a few concept sketches. From there, he and the concept artist – or anyone who had an opinion to share – would bounce ideas back and forth. “We’re all really good friends and we all get along really well, and there’s no ego,” Yanez says. “If somebody came by and said ‘I don’t like it,’ nobody is going to get offended.”

If you look at these sketches, you can see some of the details that made it through from the very start, as well as some ideas that were scrapped. “In the concepts he had four arms, for example, and that was just a lot of extra that you don’t really need,” Ashton says. “Two arms is enough to realize that he’s going to punch you in the face.”



This screenshot shows off Goliath’s roaring face, as well as his myriad spikes.

Goliath won’t win any beauty contests, but he has his share of fans at Turtle Rock. His face is a ruined wreck of bone, teeth, and tissue. When his mouth is closed, his face is like a bony, crested helmet. Get him mad, and things change. “The idea is that when he screams at you, you get this wet grossness with all these bony protrusions,” Yanez says.

He’s had some dental work as well. Originally, the Goliath had symmetrical, almost human teeth. “For whatever reason, I remember going with Goliath and thinking those teeth are too perfect, and we have to tweak the angles and make them much more chaotic,” recalls Ashton.

The result is a ruined-looking maw. “If you got bit by that, it wouldn’t be clean like shark bites,” Yanez says. “It would be like a grinder.” If you’re playing as a hunter and you get that close, odds are you’re doing something wrong. Players can get a better look at the Goliath’s mouth if they’re unfortunate enough to get incapacitated around the beast and it decides that hunter is on the menu.

Goliath also sports an impressive arrangement of spikes on his back and body. “When we started, he didn’t have any of the spiky stuff,” Yanez says. “As we were hammering on it, we tried as a test to see what spikes would look like. It looked really cool, and we only had a couple. I kept putting more and more all over him, and he looked like a mace, like something with so much muscle and bone that if he landed on something it would be like a bramble bush. You would not survive it.”



Just as the hunters have their own unique abilities, each of Evolve's monsters is equipped with its own arsenal. Here's an illustration of what the Goliath brings to the battlefield.

The Goliath is an innately strong and powerful creature, but players will be able to buff him up as they play. As the game's name suggests, he can evolve through three different forms by feeding on kills and storing energy – provided the hunters don't kill him first. Players can choose two of Goliath's four abilities when they start, and they're able to select another with each additional growth spurt.

His flame breath is a great way to punish hunters for getting too close. Once a character is alight, they continue to take damage. The pain inflicted isn't as great as some of his other attacks, but the DoT effect compounded with the panic it can create makes it invaluable.

The Goliath's leap and charge attacks are versatile maneuvers that can be used offensively or defensively. The charge is an effective way to close the gap between fleeing opponents, or it can be used to create some space between you and the hunters when you’re feeling pinned down. Similarly, the leap attack is a tool that’s useful to pounce on unsuspecting hunters from above, or to make it tough for them to draw a bead on you.

The rock throw is an attack that speaks to the Goliath’s raw power. The Goliath digs its claws into the ground, extracts a boulder, and chucks it at the nearest pest. It only takes one hit for new hunters to learn to respect this attack. It delivers a punishing, disorienting blow that can take precious seconds to recover from. The rock throw was added to address one of the issues the team discovered in playtesting. Before he had a longer-ranged attack, the hunters could lay mines and play a straight defense – effectively forcing the Goliath player to participate in his own inevitable demise.

The Goliath is only one of several different monsters that players will battle – and battle as – when Evolve ships this fall. If he’s any indication, hunters are going to have their work cut out for them.

Click on the banner below to enter our hub for exclusive content for Evolve that will be revealed throughout the month.

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Meet Evolve’s Hunters: Day 3




This week, we’re taking a focused look at four of the characters from Evolve. Turtle Rock’s upcoming shooter features four different classes – assault, trapper, support, and medic – with a variety of different people taking on those specific roles. So far, we’ve learned more about Markov, a member of the assault class, and a trapper named Griffin. Today, it’s time to learn more about Hank, a hero who takes on a supporting role.



Name: Hank
Class: Support
Class Ability: Cloaking Device

As a member of the support class, Hank’s job is to make sure everyone else is OK. He doesn’t take a healing-hands approach like a medic; his skills and abilities center on maximizing the amount of destruction that his squadmates deliver and increasing their survivability.

Monsters will learn to hate the shield gun, a device that Hank uses to blast his teammates with a temporary form of invulnerability from a distance. Apply it to a medic, and they’re able to heal everyone without worrying about their own safety. Hit a member of the assault class with it, and they’ve got even more license to stand their ground (especially when used in conjunction with their own personal shields). However, the shield gun isn’t as overpowered as it sounds; the device can only run for a few seconds at a time, so players should try to only activate the shield at the moment the monster lands its attack on an ally, then quickly switch it off to allow the tool to recharge.

On the offensive front, Hank has a laser cutter that carves into monster flesh. It’s powerful, but it’s also a superheated arrow that points to the character’s location. Stealthy, it is not. When it’s time to lay into the enemy and finish it off, however, Hank’s laser cutter is second only to Markov’s powerful assault weapons.





Hank has another powerful offensive attack at his disposal, called an orbital barrage. This airstrike causes a ton of damage to anyone within its radius. It doesn’t hit a location with pinpoint accuracy, but it shells a large area. Orbital barrage is useful for scaring away monsters who are getting ready to chow down on incapacitated characters, buying time for their resuscitation. The location that the orbital barrage is going to hit is marked by a large red bullseye, and the missiles take a few seconds to land, making it easy enough for the monster to avoid – unless the hunters coordinate Griffin’s harpoon attack and hold it one spot. Communication is key.
Finally, as a member of the support class, Hank has a cloaking device which can render him and nearby allies invisible for a short time. It’s a powerful tool when used as a way to spring sneak attacks or to escape the scene when a monster’s winning. It can also be used to cloak incapacitated enemies when you’re trying to revive them – the monster can’t eat what it can’t see.





While supporting other members of the team may not sound all that exciting, Hank’s diverse set of skills draws on all styles of play. His laser gun deals powerful damage, the shield gun provides helpful defense to allies, the orbital barrage opens up strategic possibilities, and the cloaking device is great for stealth. As a result, Hank always has something to do, making him an exciting character to play as.
Come back tomorrow for a look at another new character from Evolve.

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Esos graficos pintan muy bien!!!!

Evolve mostrará su acción en vídeo el 11 de febrero
Es lo nuevo de los creadores de Left 4 Dead.



A través de un enigmático vídeo, 2K Games ha adelantado que el próximo 11 de febrero podríamos ver el primer tráiler del nuevo juego de acción multijugador desarrollado por los creadores de Left 4 Dead, el prometedor Evolve.

Presentado hace ya algunas semanas, este título de acción obra de Turtle Rock Studios enfrentará a un equipo de cuatro jugadores contra una enorme y temible criatura, que a su vez estará manejada por un quinto jugador.

Este título se estrenará a lo largo del presente año en PC, Xbox One y PlayStation 4.

Fuente