Evolve originally for last-gen consoles

{Evolve}, the hugely anticipated multiplayer shooter from Turtle Rock, was originally destined to be a release for old-gen consoles Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

In an interview with VG247, studio founder Chris Ashton revealed that it was the shift to new-gen consoles that allows them to realise their vision for the game.

"When we were with THQ [at the start of development] we didn't even know when the next-gen systems were coming, so when we started development the idea was to go to current-gen, but as soon as those doors opened it was going to be a really brutal challenge to maintain the type of game we wanted to make," Ashton said.

"There were a lot of concerns [on last-gen]: could we have enough foliage for the monster to hide in? Could we simulate enough wildlife for the monster to eat? - all kinds of simulation tests like how many cycles it was going to take, and how many wildlife we could support.

"We were having to put low-caps on that sort of stuff. It was really hurting the game and I'm not talking about visuals, these are things that are core to the game Evolve, and so fortunately the next-gen systems came out, 2K adopted the title and we all took a look together at both options.

"The right decision was to go exclusive to next-gen to make sure that the vision for the game could actually be executed on."

Evolve has been in development for some time, but was officially unveiled last month (you can read our first preview of the game here). We spoke to Turtle Rock's Matt O'Driscoll about why four's the magic number when it comes to the game's multiplayer, which puts teams of four up against a powerful player-controlled monster in tense and tactical battles. We're expecting the game to land on PC, PS4 and Xbox One towards the end of the year.