Evolve dev responds to DLC criticism

The co-founder of developer Turtle Rock has insisted that upcoming shooter Evolve is not ripping off customers by hiding content behind paywalls.

It was revealed earlier this week that gamers who pre-purchase the title on Xbox Live will get instant access to some of the title’s later in-game rewards.

There’s also a huge amount of DLC planned, too, which can either be acquired via a Season Pass or individually, while there are a number of SKUs available priced anything between 35 and 89.

A lot of folks seem to be under the impression that we’ve got all this content done and we shave off a hunk to sell separately. That just isn’t the case,” Phil Robb said. When Evolve hits the shelves, none of the DLC will be done. None of the planned DLC hunters or monsters will be done.

The only exception to this might be some skins that were working on now while we wait for all the final stages of packaging, manufacturing etc to finish.

If we thought we could have finished all those monsters and hunters for ship we would have put them in the box. The bundles that include 4th and 5th monsters, hunters, etc, just mean that when they are done and we put ’em out, you get ’em.

As we got closer to finishing Evolve we ended up with designs for a bunch of monster and hunters that we just didn’t have the time and money to make. Instead of throw them all out, why not put together a budget to make them as DLC? Means more content for the people who love the game and want more. It also means all those ideas get to see the light of day. Oh yeah, and it means more work for TRS and we can keep paying our bills and making cool stuff!”

Robb went on to say that the game’s DLC maps and game modes will be free so as to never split the community” and insisted that DLC characters will not be over-powered compared to those included in the vanilla game.

The bundles are options, nothing more,” he added. IF you plan to buy all that stuff anyway then you can get a bundle with all that content at a discount. Not a new concept, businesses have been doing that since money was invented. I’ve bought passes for games where I felt burned and I’ve bought passes for games and was happy with my purchase. But that’s a personal choice, as is any purchase. All of those different tiers are there to provide options.

Ultimately, TRS makes the games, we don’t sell them…and as the developers we’ve done our best to make a game that people want to play. We then have to trust our publisher to make the best decision on how to sell that game.

We’ve done everything we could to keep this stuff as open to choice as possible and despite how it may look to some, there isn’t anything here that forces people to spend more money than they are comfortable with. We feel like all of the Evolve bundles that 2K announced just offer people choices, and having choices isn’t a bad thing.”