After a strange and largely unnoticed turn of events, Evolve — 2K’s asymmetrical multiplayer survival game from 2015 that had mostly shut down in 2018 — will now be shutting down for good in July, of this year. Wait, what?
While most of us acknowledged the game’s coming and going without a second thought, its dedicated player base has continued orchestrating online matches in the remaining peer-to-peer multiplayer mode since 2018 through the Evolve: Reunited Discord server. In the early months of 2022 however, even this functionality suddenly stopped, sending those dedicated fans to 2K Support. By July 2K had not only reinstated peer-to-peer multiplayer in the Legacy version of Evolve but reportedly enabled it for existing owners of the free-to-play Stage 2 re-release and even reactivated daily login bonuses.
It’s amazing to see a game that the majority of us assumed had died five years ago suddenly be reinvigorated thanks to the continued support of its fans. But the good vibes can’t last forever and 2K Support followed up just last month with a final deadline for the game.
Starting on June 5, 2023 we will be scaling back support for Evolve and begin the process of sunsetting the servers.
For one month, from June 5 to July 6, Stage 2 Multiplayer will be offline but you will still be able to engage in Peer to Peer Multiplayer. On July 6, 2023 we will bring the Evolve servers completely down for a final time and the game will no longer be playable.
The support and enthusiasm of the Evolve community over the last several months is much appreciated, but the time has come to dedicate our resources to other projects.
2K Support – March 09, 2023
This will ultimately leave players with only the offline, bot-filled single-player matches. Maybe fans will one day work out a private server solution to once again get the game online but for now it seems like July 6th will finally be the end of the surprisingly long-lived Evolve. Thanks to Serrated-banner9 for submitting the news, I’ve added the date to the Watch List calendar and already updated the game’s page on the site.