Evolve development stopped, free-to-play wasn’t enough to save it

Evolve got a second lease on life with the switch to free-to-play in July, but it looks like it wasn't enough to save the 4v1 shooter from Turtle Rock Studios, even considering that at times it was one of the most played games on Steam. The studio has announced the decision to halt development on Evolve after five and a half years and while the message isn't completely clear on the reasoning for this, it looks like parent company 2K was the one that made the decision:

“This is the life of AAA game developers who aren’t self-funded and don’t own their own IP. We don’t get to make the call. We all know that going in but we still sign the dotted line because we love what we do.”

The studio is still thankful to 2K for taking the risk:

“Thanks to 2K for picking up the mantle out of THQ’s bankruptcy and making Evolve one of the most anticipated games of 2015. Additional big thanks to 2K for reaching outside their comfort zone and funding Evolve: Stage 2 by taking a AAA game free to play, which was a first for all of us.”

Turtle Rock couldn't say how long Evolve's servers will remain live and don't have any call on things such as unlocking the content for everyone to enjoy while the game is still running, so we'll have to keep checking to see how it goes.