The Art of Evolve is the perfect companion for fans of the game. Reading this beautiful book, put together through a collaboration between Turtle Rock Studios and Insight Edition, you get a much deeper look into the design process than you might expect. It's not just art here- interviews with developers and artists reveal many of the thoughtsbehind each and every character and environment.
The first thing that’s obvious is that the world of Evolve was designed first to look cool and different, with the reasoning behind the world provided later. Gaming truly is different than any other medium, because a game that isn’t fun to play isn’t worth all of the worldbuilding. See Destiny’s popularity for a backwards example of that.
So Turtle Rock designed the concept of the game first- a team of four hunters facing down one huge monster- and then tried to figure out just what was going on here.
The world Shear was originally supposed to be many different worlds with different climates but it was eventually condensed into one that contains different environments, much like our own.
Populating that world is all manner of creatures, and a chapter of the book focuses on all the many, many ones that make up this world's complicated ecosystem.
Each of the 12 hunters gets at least a two-page spread showing the direction their look took towards the final design, as well as background info on all of their weapons. These aren't factory-bought pieces- they all have histories to them, and many have been modified from other devices for its new use.
At first, any character could use any weapon, but this created some innate character design flaws. For example- Markov's iconic lightning gun was a massive weapon, not useable by anyone who was smaller in stature. They started putting limits on certain weapons before one designer finally realized- why doesn't each character have their own unique loadout? That changed everything and made the game that much more thrilling. Now there was actually an incentive to unlock each new character, as they all came with their own gadgets and weapons.
There are also dozens of silhouettes of hunters displayed here that hint at some truly fascinating concepts, and it will be interesting to see if any of them eventually make their way into the game with future DLC. They do have to populate that season pass, after all.
You'll also find much more backstory here than you will in the game. Markov is a Martian? There's tales of a Mutagen Wars? Val is a spy!? It's all stuff that is fleetingly mentioned in the game, if at all, but it's all here in this book.
This carries over to the monsters as well, with some details made available that may surprise even those who've played the game. It's easy to miss the fact that the monster isn't part of the world that the humans are trying to colonize- it's as much an alien to these parts as the hunters are. I've informed many heavy players of the game about this fact and none of them were aware of it.
It does make sense when you think about it- what ecosystem could possibly sustain these ravenous beasts- but even if it is included in the game somewhere, it's hardly obvious.
After the hunters is a chapter about the three main monsters, the Goliath, Kraken, and Wraith. As is the case with most concept art books, this is the meat of the book. Creature designs are just so much more fun and imaginative than alien world vistas, even though in this author's opinion the Goliath still is the most boring of the possible designs they could have gone with.
There's actually a reason for that, though. Add in the bipedal, most familiar monstrosity first, and then you can get players to dive into the more unconventional alien life forms, as they’ve tried with the Kraken and Wraith.
This book is full of great stories and info like this, not to mention the incredible designs. If you’re a fan of Evolve and really want to dive more into the four-year long process of making it, as well as learn more about each of these fascinating characters that the actual game sadly doesn’t get into, The Art of Evolve is well worth purchasing.
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Note: This review was written by a PDF provided by the publisher, and thus we cannot talk about the quality of the pages of the book itself. The Art of Evolve is 192 pages and will run you $39.99 for a hardcover copy, although you can find it discounted on Amazon.