Evolve’s dedicated servers are being shut down

2K has announced that Evolve Stage 2 dedicated servers are to shut down on September 3, 2018. This end of services affects dedicated servers for the “Stage 2” version of Evolve. The Legacy version will remain online in a limited state after the shut down. Peer-to-peer multiplayer in some modes, as well as singleplayer content, will remain open to all players.

Evolve Stage 2 was the attempted revitalization of the game after a lackluster launch as a paid title saw the playerbase dwindle to nothing. In Stage 2, Evolve went free-to-play, and added a cash shop. That cash shop will also go offline on July 2, 2018. Players will retain any purchased items on their accounts, these will likely be downloaded and stored locally as the servers for profiles and other aspects of the game are going offline during the Stage 2 shutdown.

To activate the legacy version players need to take the following steps:

1. Right-click Evolve in Steam and select “Properties”
2. Go to the “Betas” tab
3. In the dropdown, select “legacyevolve – The Original Evolve Product”
4. Click “Close”
5. Wait for the game to download the differences
6. Start playing

A list of features that will be availabe in the legacy version includes the following.

Features still functional in Legacy Evolve

• Multiplayer –
  • Peer-to-peer multiplayer: Players will be able to team up and play against each other through peer-to-peer matchmaking. Players are also able to use the party-up feature to create games.
    • Quick Play
      • Hunt
      • Nest
      • Rescue
      • Defend
      • Arena
    • Evacuation
    • Custom games
  • Single Player (solo vs. AI) –
    • Evacuation
    • Quick Play
    • Custom games
  • My2K login access
  • Access to all hunters, monsters, purchased DLC, skins & player badges

What features are going away?

• Hunt (Ranked)
  • Players will still be able to play Hunt by going into Quick play and Custom games
• Player Profile data
• Leaderboards will no longer be populated with player data
• The in-game store will be removed
• The newsfeed will be unavailable
• Player Badges will be unavailable