gamescom 2014: Taking a Trip to Evolve’s Distillery

On the eve of gamescom 2014, 2K Games and Turtle Rock Studios gave attendees of the Xbox Media Showcase a chance to sample Evolve’s unique 4v1 hunt gameplay on a brand new map: Distillery.

This new environment features the eponymous metallic structure set in a familiar-yet-alien forest teeming with wildlife. A river runs through it, complete with a towering waterfall and plenty of opportunities for platforming on the islands in current.

As one might expect at a distillery, our team of hunters quickly found some hops – though these weren’t of the brewers’ variety. After one of my teammates finished off some of the aggressive local fauna, those of us who happened by the creature’s remains were awarded with a significant perk: 400% greater jump height. This bonus was helpful in keeping up with our flying kraken quarry, as we leapt our way through some very vertical parts of the map.    

The developers also used the Distillery map to reveal
Evolve‘s dynamic weather system. As the hunt unfolds, players may encounter vision-obscuring fog or footprint-erasing rain. On this occasion, we encountered snow, which inflicted both these penalties on our hunting party. As a result, we were unable to draw a bead on the monster for long periods of time. Our only hints to the monster’s location were of disturbed flocks of birds, or alerts when it passed near one of my Hunter’s Sound Spikes, which act as something of a surveillance system.

Working as a team, we managed to keep the monster on the run, skirmishing within the unfriendly confines of my Hunter’s portable trap arenas. Unable to reach the 3rd stage, the creature fell before us and we reveled in the win, knowing it would last only until the next hunt commenced.

Of note, 2K announced that
Evolve’s Xbox One exclusive beta will become available in January 2015, ahead of the title’s February 10 release date.