Evolve is a Hero Shooter developed by Turtle Rock Studios (Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike Condition Zero) and published by 2K Games, involving Asymmetric 4v1 Multiplayer between four Hunters and one Monster on the alien planet Shear.
Four players make up a team of human Hunters, while a fifth player is a giant alien Monster, pitted against each other in one of five game modes: Hunt, Nest, Rescue, Defend, and Arena. In most cases, victory is possible by annihilating the opposition. There are alternate win objectives, such as rescuing (or killing) colonists, or destroying a key target.
The 20 (not counting adaptations) available Hunters are very unique, and each one in a team fulfills a different role: Assaults have the biggest guns and carry two or three weapons. Trappers are able to locate the Monster and control its movement; Supports bolster and protect their allies; Medics heal the team and pack some heat, too. Singly, they are liable to be killed by native wildlife on planet Shear, to say nothing of the Monster. Together, they are extremely dangerous.
The Monster is a one-alien army, well-equipped with the ability to attack, evade, regenerate armor, and evolve after eating enough of the local fauna. The game contains Five unique Monsters: the melee powerhouse Goliath, the flying and long-ranged Kraken, the evasive Wraith, the 35-ton Behemoth, and the horrific Gorgon.
Evolve uses CryEngine 4th Generation and was released on February 10, 2015 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
On July 7th of 2016, Evolve made the shift to free-to-play on PC, and relaunched under the name Evolve Stage 2. This came in addition to other major gameplay changes in order to make the game more accessible to novices. A list of all the changes can be found here.
It is still possible to play the original Evolve, informally titled Evolve Legacy, by selecting it from the beta dropdown in Steam.
On October 27th of 2016, Turtle Rock Studios' contract with 2K expired and the Evolve IP transferred to 2K. The status of the peer-to-peer matchmaking servers for Stage 2 and Legacy has fluctuated since then, culminating in the matchmaking going completely offline in early 2022. In a somewhat surprising move, 2K Games re-enabled the peer-to-peer matchmaking for Evolve Stage 2 in July 2022. A year later, the servers were shut down for the final time, rendering the game completely unplayable.
Not to be confused with the similarly named Evolva.
Evolve contains examples of the following tropes:
- Absent Aliens: There has been no contact with intelligent life, only various alien fauna. The monsters are the closest thing they've found, and they're only intelligent to the degree necessary to get around the technology gap and kill humans.
- Acid Attack: Gorgon has an acid spray attack. This is one of its most damaging attacks, rapidly melting through the health of anything caught by it.
- After the End: Canonically, the hunters are stranded on Shear in these conditions after the evacuation. This is the timeframe where all the Team D characters show up.
- All There in the Manual: There's a lot of information in the forums that you're unlikely to find out from the game. This includes canonical short stories and notes on the development.
- Alternate Continuity: According to the developers, there are several equally canonical continuities represented by the variations.
- Basic: The original 12 hunters and five monsters, as well as the Legacy Evolve Evacuation campaign, game modes, and maps. All other continuities diverge from this one at some point after the hunters become stranded on Shear.
- Timeline 1: Wasteland Maggie, Renegade Abe, Battle Cabot, Meteor Goliath, and Cataclysm Orbital Drill. The monsters have affected the environment, rendering it toxic to the hunters while meteors rain from the sky.
- Timeline 2: Rogue Val, Tech Sgt. Hank, Blitz Markov, and Phantom Wraith. Val wears her CIG9 suit instead of a field medic suit. Little is known about this one other than the characters it contains.
- Timeline 3: Paladin Parnell. Parnell took a Paladin suit rather than a Rage Trooper suit. Nothing else is known about this timeline.
- Timeline 4: Deepest Dark and H Hyde. Most of the Crew is dead after Kala finished her mutation. The monsters use Shear as a breeding ground, from which they depart to other worlds, while the few remaining hunters attempt to slow their progress.
- Timeline 5: Overpowered Weather Control, Elder Kraken, Quantum Caira, Electro Griffin, and C Bucket. This shows the battle for Shear as it is portrayed in propaganda. As a result, despite being the depictions being non-canonical, this timeline can be considered canon alongside any other one.
- Timeline 6: Nothing is known about this timeline other than that there were supposed to have been future maps and characters for it.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The Planet Scanner available to Trappers gives the rough bearing of the Monster. While a cunning and skilled Monster player can still trick it, without it the Hunters would be almost completely lost and thus hapless to prevent the Monster's evolution.
- Anyone Can Die: Every hunter either has Character Death or Uncertain Doom by the end of the story.
- Apocalypse How: The Monster's goal is to eliminate humans and the Patterson tech they build. Besides Shear, they've destroyed Chapel Colony, Factor, The ELSG Ajax, and several other planets and ships. If left unchecked, they may spread to every human territory in the universe.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Bohrium, a naturally occurring mineral that is vital to all the fancy tech the humans use. It also causes storms when too close to the surface and can be eaten by Monsters. In a more limited scope, generyst fungus, which is responsible for all the healing tech the hunters use.
- Armor Is Useless:
- Half of the hunters are wearing essentially normal clothes, but still have the the same damage resistance as, say, Markov and Parnell, who are decked out in full Power Armor. The Assault class does get a Deflector Shield for personal damage mitigation, but it has nothing to do with what they're wearing.
- Speaking of Assaults, Hyde is wearing a tank top, and Torvald is a permanent Walking Shirtless Scene.
- Asymmetric Multiplayer: The game pits four Hunters against one Monster, and each of the five players has their own unique abilities.
- Audience Participation: The Behemoth was named through a poll. The other options were Titan, Juggernaut, and Colossus.
- Aura Vision: Available to all players, though they show different things; the Monster can see Hunters outlined in red, for instance, while Hunters see his tracks picked out in blue. A perk also allows Hunters to see wildlife.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Some of the flashier monster abilities like Lightning Strike or Fire Breath will do massive damage to wildlife, but they're not exactly inconspicuous with their explosions of light and fire. If the monster is trying to stay hidden, then using them while the hunters are too near is not usually a good idea.
- Beware the Cute Ones: Wild Trapjaws and Mammoth Birds are adorable, but they can cause some significant damage if you aren't careful.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: There are obsidian grubs on many maps, beetle-like creatures as tall as your shin. A more extreme example are the dune beetles, car sized insectoids that really hate humans.
- Black Site:
- Akhenaten, a top secret space station dedicated to studying the Monsters. Most consider it an Urban Legend, but Kala know the truth.
- A more local version, the Wraith Trap on Shear. There is also an area on the Armory map called Blacksite, though it doesn't seem to be significant.
- Bolivian Army Ending: On the final mission of the Evacuation campaign, the hunters are all resolved to pull off a You Shall Not Pass!, holding back a horde of monsters long enough for a spaceship carrying thousands of civilians to escape the planet. After a hunter victory, a cutscene plays, showing them doing pretty well for a while until an abrupt fade to black just as the horde reaches them. The cutscene for hunter defeat is similar in concept, but shows the hunters getting smacked around a bit, then massacred by the horde, followed by the massive explosion of the spaceship they were trying to protect. All of this is deliberate Gameplay and Story Integration. In the Defend game mode, hunters respawn much more quickly and do not lose if the team is annihilated, giving players incentive to hold the line and show less regard for their own safety than they otherwise might.
- Boss Game: With another human controlling the "boss" in question, and at the same time, the hunters are a Wolf Pack Boss from his point of view.
- Breath Weapon: The Goliath can breathe swathes of fire which also set the environment ablaze.
- Cannibalism Superpower: The monster primarily levels up by killing and eating the native fauna.
- Captain Obvious: Whenever a Hunter sees a sign that the Monster has been by (tracks, hovering birds, etc.) they will call out their observation to the rest of the team. While normally justified, Bucket gives us this gem:"Birds are circling. The robot is stating the obvious."
- Carnivorous Healing Factor: The Monster spends much of the game killing wildlife to eat their corpses, which replenishes armour and accumulates energy needed to get stronger. They can also eat the corpses of any Hunters they kill for the same purpose (even if said Hunter was a robot), although eating the corpse is also useful to keep Lazarus from resurrecting them.
- Cast from Hit Points: Every time Parnell uses his Super Soldier ability, it takes off a portion of his health.
- Cherry Tapping: It's even an achievement. Cockroach requires you to kill the monster with a pistol... which requires you to be incapacitated.
- Circling Vultures: A monster can attract vulture-like harpies to a fresh corpse.
- Close-Range Combatant: All of the monsters have at least one long-range option, but really do their heaviest damage at punching range. Since the hunters have guns and all, the best damage mitigation is to not get close.
- Combat Medic: The medics' top priority is to keep the team alive, but even their relatively weaker weapons will shred the smaller wildlife, and give an overly-evasive monster something to think about.
- Competitive Balance: The four hunters cover each other's weaknesses, and the loss of any one of them is a huge blow. The monster's evolution stages go from being weaker, then equal, then stronger than the hunters.
- Damage-Sponge Boss:
- Goliath and Behemoth both have a large amount of health and armor, befitting their melee-focused strategies.
- Kraken and Wraith are notably less tough, but can still take quite a beating and mitigate a lot of potential damage through their superior agility.
- Deadpan Snarker: The character bios on the official website take this tone:"If we judge a man by his friends, Cabot has some explaining to do."
- Death Is Cheap:
- Normally averted, as being incapped causes a strike and Maximum HP Reduction. After 2 strikes, the next health bar depletion is instant death, and a long wait until reinforcing.
- Death is always cheap for Lazarus, as he can instantly bring anyone back from the dead with no strike penalty.
- Death World: Shear is a place with incredibly dangerous wildlife, where the predators, scavengers, and even some herbivores can easily rip a lone Hunter apart.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- While all the characters are reasonably competitive, the higher-tier ones are generally more difficult to use, but have a bit more maximum potential in the right hands. Take the Assaults for example. Tier 1 Markov's proximity mines are set-and-forget, and his lightning gun barely needs to be aimed. Tier 4 Torvald's mortar cannons are devastating when they strike true, but the long travel time of the shells makes him nearly useless in the hands of a novice.
- Supports are this by definition. What they inherently lack in raw damage, they make up for with indirect abilities that improve the rest of the hunter's chances. Kala is this above all, with little in the way of decent damage, but her teleporters can provide incredible mobility if used for short range jumps mid battle, and her armor disintegrator allows allies to completely bypass any and all existing armor the monster has to damage their health directly.
- The Wraith may be very powerful and mobile, but she is the most fragile of the monsters even at stage three and has no true ranged abilities to stand off with. Her Abduction that pulls one hunter away from the rest is hard to aim. Bad Wraiths are easy meat for a competent hunter team; good Wraiths are Slasher Movie villains, unseen until the time is right, nearly untouchable and single out and rip apart hunters with frightening ease.
- Disturbed Doves: A Gameplay mechanic. The monster can startle wild batrays and betray his position.
- Everything Trying to Kill You:
- Besides the opposing team, almost all of Shear's wildlife is hostile to both players. Generally, Hunters are more vulnerable to attacks, but noisy, fearful herbivores aren't doing a hiding Monster any favors. It's entirely possible for a random Mammoth Bird to score the killing blow on the last Hunter or a badly-injured Monster.
- Somewhat averted with the monster. At stage 1, this trope holds true. At stage 2 smaller predators will back off. At stage 3, anything short of a tyrant is going to flee in terror.
- Evolutionary Levels: The game is called Evolve for a reason. After the Monster eats enough, it can upgrade both itself and its abilities after finding a safe spot to cocoon.
- Fantasy World Map: Found here. It also displays maps of the... well, maps.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Ships can do this using Cherenkov Space. Any ship not dive-capable is extremely limited in its travel scope, as the hunters discover.
- Fictional Currency: Keys, short for kilosatoshi. Hyde mentions that he owes Bucket 50 keys after losing a game of cards against the robot.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The first three monsters. Goliath is the brawler that excels at physical combat but lacks reliable ranged options, Kraken is the Squishy Wizard with devastating area-based lightning attacks, and Wraith is the Fragile Speedster with stealth and burst damage abilities used for Hit-and-Run Tactics.
- Fragile Speedster:
- Compared to the Goliath, the Kraken has less health and armor, but makes up for it in ranged combat, better mobility and the ability to fly.
- The Wraith can move extremely fast but has the lowest armor/health of the three. It does have high damage output and many ways to avoid damage, though.
- Parnell's Super Soldier ability enables him to jump, shoot, run, and reload faster than usual, but at a price of a portion his health every time he uses it.
- Galactic Superpower: There are three superpowers in the galaxy, all human.
- Hub, the Earth centered superpower. It has advanced technology and maintains its grip on its holdings through spies, preemptive strikes, and various top secret projects.
- The Far Arm, located towards the edge of the galaxy. It's the largest of the superpowers but isn't a single nation, consisting of many independent planets and systems. It's run through corporate feudalism and holds the most resources.
- The Hegemony, located between Earth and the core of the galaxy. Little is know about it, besides that it is more technologically advanced than Hub.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: It's possible to have both normal Abe and Renegade Abe, and presumably all future cross-class adaptations, together on the same team.
- Giant Mook: Armadons, Crowbill Sloths, Desert Nomads, Dune Beetles, Megamouths and Tyrants are some of the larger and more dangerous wildlife on the planet.
- Glass Cannon:
- Parnell can deal massive damage up close with his rocket launcher and shotgun and he even has a Super Soldier ability, which enables him to jump, shoot, run, and reload faster than usual, but it takes off a portion of his health every time he uses it, and his overall combat effectiveness depends on how well-protected he is in battle.
- The Wraith. Least amount of health/armor of the three monsters, but can dish out incredible damage per second, especially with Supernova. Hit-and-Run Tactics are pretty much required when using it.
- Abe's Assault adaption, Renegade Abe. His defense matrix isn't anywhere near as effective as the other assaults, but his damage-over-time effects, powerful shotgun, and the ability to make the monster take more damage means that if he gets a good shot off, the monster is going to really feel it.
- Golden Snitch: Downplayed. The five-map-long Evacuation campaign mode was described by the developers as winner-take-all on the fifth map, but all you really win is a different cutscene and flavor text on the campaign recap. Overall wins and losses are recorded on the leaderboards, but campaign wins are not.
- Great Offscreen War: Several of the Hunters bios have them as veterans of the "Mutagen Wars".
- Great White Hunter: Griffin is apparently all about hunting game rather than the pay. It just so happens he's found something that'll put up a fight.
- Healing Shiv: Val's Medgun, which works in a similar fashion to the Medic's in Team Fortress 2. Caira does this as her grenade launcher can also fire healing grenades.
- Hit-and-Run Tactics: The Wraith is required to use this due to her low durability compared to the other monsters. She has abilities that let her do so: Warp Blast allows her to fly into the fray and deal an AOE attack, Abduction separates a hunter from the group, Decoy makes the group focus on another target, and Supernova allows her to deal burst AOE damage before retreating.
- Hopeless War: The monsters can appear on any planet without warning, rip through military defenses in days, and can evolve into anything needed to win. They will win, the only question is how long it will take. In some timelines, the monsters have ALREADY won.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The monster's evolution stages go from being weaker, then equal, then stronger than the hunters. In Hunt mode, a Stage 3 monster can attack the map's Power Relay, generally forcing the hunters into a defensive "siege" position rather than chasing the Monster around the map.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Zig-zagged — the alien cannot recover health from eating the local fauna (unless it eats an Elite Tyrant). What eating can do is regain armor, and since Body Armor as Hit Points is in effect, that might be just what a nearly-dead Monster needs to survive.
- Increasingly Lethal Enemy: The entire mechanic of the monster. It starts out weaker than the Hunters, but if it survives and eats enough, it can evolve to get on equal strength with them. If it manages to eat enough and evolve yet again, it becomes stronger than the Hunters.
- Instant-Win Condition: The game doesn't care how close reinforcements are, or how much damage you might do with your pistols. If any of the following conditions are met, the round is over:
- In all modes, if the Monster dies, Hunters win.
- In all modes except Defend, if all Hunters are downed, Monster wins.
- In Hunt or Defend, if the objective is destroyed, Monster wins. If time runs out, Hunters win.
- In Nest, if all eggs and minions are destroyed, Hunters win. If time runs out, Monster wins.
- In Rescue, if 5 survivors are rescued, Hunters win. 5 survivors killed? Monster wins. (Sorry, Lazarus, you don't get a chance to revive them.)
- In the Back: When a monster attacks from stealth, it does a "sneak attack" where it pounces onto the target and, with a few exceptions, locks it down into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, though this can be interrupted by other hunters' attacks.
- Jet Pack: All hunters have a jet pack of various designs to aid in their getting around the terrain.
- Kill It with Fire: Hyde, Caira, Goliath, and Behemoth use fire as their primary means of dealing damage, all have fire-based weapons that will set their target aflame and deal additional damage for a few extra seconds.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Some elite wildlife won't be stunned by sneak attacks.
- Last of His Kind: A lot of hunters wear this mantle. Maggie is the sole survivor of Factor, another colony that had been ravaged by monsters. Lazarus is the last of the Lazarus Men/Thanatologists. Slim is the last of the Basilisk Soldiers.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Goliath is durable, powerful, and can put on bursts of speed.
- Long-Range Fighter: Of the Monsters, Kraken is most capable at long range, and its Vortex ability will knock away Hunters and keep it that way. Much like how its fellow monsters have some long-range options, Kraken's Aftershock ability and heavy melee attacks make it very dangerous for Hunters to just camp out in a small building.
- Maniac Monkeys: Reavers, monkey-like animals that are weak but appear in packs and attack any hunters or monsters that agitate them.
- Maximum HP Reduction: Any hunter who gets downed will have lowered maximum health for the rest of the round (except in Defend). If they are downed again, the reduction doubles. Getting downed a third time is instantly lethal.
- Meaningful Name:
- The names of several hunters have origins relating to their personalities or roles. To name a few: Markov is the Russian form of Mars, Roman god of war; Hyde quickly brings to mind the famous novel; Torvald originates from Thor, god of thunder; Cabot means "to sail", a fitting name for a spaceship captain; Lazarus is the man that Jesus raised from the dead in The Bible; and Val means "strong and healthy", appropriate for a medic. The list goes on, but clearly it was given some thought.
- The planet itself has one. According to
Word of God, the name Shear is derived from Shìjiè, the Chinese word for world.
- MegaCorp: Five of them, referred to in-universe as gigacorps. They are The North Dakota Interstellar Transit Amalgam (NORDITA), Celestial Materials Extraction & Transport (Celestial), The Pradesh Institute of Technology - Research & Engineering (PITRE), Earhardt Organics, and The Rank-Rajat Corporation. NORDITA is the most prominent one in-game as they own the colony of Shear.They are influential enough to run the Far Arm through Hired Guns and Corporate Warfare.
- Mutual Kill: Although rare, it's possible to get a draw if the monster and the last standing hunter somehow manage to kill each other at the exact same time.
- Necessary Drawback:
- All the intra-class adaptations have some limiting factor to ensure that they don't obsolete the originals.
- Perks that boost multiple attributes give smaller individual bonuses than those that boost only one.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The Tyrants, which are found in areas of certain maps called "Tyrant Pools", are not to be messed with. They have a nasty habit of grabbing a Hunter in their jaws and refusing to let go, shrugging off a hurricane of bullets before giving up.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: In the context of an entire species. The monsters will create new forms to overcome anything that so much as slows their progress.
- Optional Stealth: It's possible for the monster to sneak around the entire map without attracting the hunters' attention or scaring away birds while getting to Level 3.
- Out of Focus: On a national scale. The Hegemony is the third galactic superpower, located between Earth and the core of the galaxy. It was engaged in a Space Cold War with Hub for years and is noticeably more advanced technologically. Despite this, there aren't any Hegemony characters in the game and the hunters don't even mention it.
- Pet the Dog: After the destruction of Shear, the survivors are taken to a new colony, with their shares intact, and get to start a new life. Pretty nice of NORDITA, considering they knew the monsters were coming months in advance and didn't warn them.
- Piranha Problem: The Canyon Eels found on the Dam map and the surrounding areas should the monster win an Evac match there, are at their core, space piranhas.
- Play as a Boss: One of the game's selling points is being able to play as the monsters, who are essentially playable Boss Battles. All of them have devastating and/or useful abilities, tons of health and armor compared to the Hunters, and can even evolve to get stronger if not taken down quickly.
- Play Every Day: In Stage 2, The Daily Rewards you get can range from a sum of Silver Keys to a free Hunter or Monster, so it pays to at least log into the game once every day.
- Playing with Fire: The Goliath has a flaming Breath Weapon.
- Private Military Contractors: Ebonstar Tactical Solutions, the Hired Guns of NORDITA. The maps King's Fort, Armory, Barracks, and Wraith Trap are all Ebonstar facilities.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The canonical ending to the Evacuation. The hunters successfully defend the evacuation ship, but they become stranded on Shear with no way to escape.
- Redshirt Army: Played with. Ebonstar is great at what it does, but what it does isn't fight Monsters. Several of the map's flavor text explicitly mentions that their bases were prepared to fight space ships and soldiers, not giant alien killbeasts.
- Regenerating Shield, Static Health: The monster's armor will regenerate over time, and also replenishes by a huge amount if it eats the local fauna. Health doesn't regenerate at all unless the monster has the Elite Tyrant's buff, but you always get a fixed bonus from evolving.
- The Reveal: The story of the game began as a simple thing, telling the tale of a group of hunters brought in to protect colonists from some nasty wildlife. Over the two years of active addition, this was revealed to be just the tip of the iceberg. Due to the nature of the game there were actually several reveals spread out across the game's lifespan.
- Maggie reveals that Shear isn't the only planet the monsters have attacked, turning a rather dangerous wildlife problem into a potential galaxy-wide scourge.
- After analyzing the monsters, Caira determines that they were most likely engineered and that the engineers were probably not human, that the monster "eggs" don't contain embryotic monsters before they hatch and give off a signal usually seen in FTL devices, and that the monsters will occasionally ignore humans but always destroy Patterson tech.
- Kala joins the team and reveals the product of two years worth of research on the monsters and being hooked into their Hive Mind: The monsters are capable of using the equations for advanced human tech through biological means and the monsters may not be native to this dimension. They also seem to want to annihilate the human universe for being an aberration.
- The final reveal, given out by a Turtle Rock developer before 2K took the IP. The monsters originate from a parallel dimension closely aligned with the human one. The Patterson tech, while a useful source of energy here, has the effect of a constantly exploding atomic bomb in their dimension. The monsters were sent into our dimension with the intent to nucleate it into an absolute vacuum, erasing all Patterson tech, the humans who created it, and the entire universe.
- Rock Beats Laser: Can happen both figuratively and literally with the Goliath. Rock Throw can easily decimate the high-tech hunters and Turrets, especially if leveled up enough.
- Rush Boss: Wraith. It has low health and armor, but its attacks are very painful when it decides to pop in and attack. Especially once it gets Supernova out.
- Secret Character: A minor example. Before the adaptations for the monsters are released, there is a chance that they will be the randomly chosen AI monster in solo mode. Of course, it stops being secret a few weeks later when it's released, but it fits before that.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: NORDITA didn't warn the colonists about the monsters because they didn't want to cause a panic. Flavor text reveals that colonization efforts ground to a halt after the evacuation survivors spread word and caused a panic, making their evacuation of Shear contradictory to their own goals.
- Shock and Awe: The Kraken can attack with electrical blasts. The Mammoth Birds can also put out quite a jolt.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Abe, Parnell, and Torvald all carry automatic shotguns.
- Shout-Out:
- The Goliath has a move where it throws a huge rock chunk.
- Kraken looks pretty much like Cthulhu.
- Bucket has a line of dialogue and a skin that openly references Titanfall.
- Shows Damage:
- The monsters will become visibly torn up as they lose health, and Goliath's run animation will change once he gets low enough.
- When fully armored, monsters will glow brightly; the loss of armor will cause them to look normal again.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both Hyde and Abe swear a noticeable amount compared to the other characters. Expect Precision F Strikes and Cluster F Bombs from the two. Demon Core Emet is as well, though his tend to be more creative than simple curse words.
- The Smurfette Principle: Two of the five monsters, Wraith and Gorgon, are female.
- Snowy Screen of Death: An audio version. Several of the intro radio broadcasts have the speaker Killed Mid-Sentence and the transmission break into static.
- Space Cold War: One takes place in the background lore between Hub and The Hegemony. Eventually ended by a peace treaty, allowing Hub to spare its troops to deal with Basilisk Rebellion.
- Squishy Wizard: The Kraken takes less damage than the Goliath before going down. It makes up for that with flight and long-range electrical attacks.
- The Stinger: After the credits, there's video of an unknown planet and its moons accompanied by a series of electronic tones. Putting the sound through a sonic visualizer translated it to Beam Cmetlink M 50 Z 312380 xCaps AKHENAHTEN CMHQ Under attack by unknown spontaneously generated hostile entities station defenses under entity control suffering heavy casualties superheavy ordinance ineffective - advise no contact full quarantine execute protocol BG 1132 five days of life support remaining tight beam emetlink.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The Monster Evacuation win bonus for the distillery is incredibly aggressive wildlife.
- Three Round Deathmatch: The Arena mode is set up this way. The "deathmatch" part might be justified in this case as Hunters are shown inexplicably coming back from the dead anyway, and a dead Monster could be replaced by another Monster.
- To Serve Man: The Monster can eat the hunters after killing them. Not only does it provide energy and armor, it also prevents Lazarus from bringing them Back from the Dead.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- When teammates get too low on health they enter an incapped state. They're incapable of moving and their health slowly decreases until they die, but you can revive them to get them back in the fight. Or you can stand over them, doing nothing as they bleed out. Or, if playing the monster, leave one hunter incapped and hit his area with AOE anytime one of his allies tries to revive him.
- Do you hate escort missions? Play Rescue mode as the monster and enjoy hunting the near-helpless escortees for sport.
- Violation of Common Sense:
- Since there is no friendly fire or self-damage, it's not uncommon to see Hank order an orbital barrage at downed teammates or his own feet, or for hunters to be next to Markov's arc mines as they detonate. Hunters do get knocked away a short distance, but that's all.
- What's the best thing to do when a giant monster several times your size is climbing up a cliff face toward you? Jump straight down toward it. The Monsters are entirely unable to attack while climbing up, so dropping down to them is as safe as anything a Hunter could hope to do in the game.
- The War of Earthly Aggression:
- The Basilisk Rebellions, more commonly known as the Mutagen Wars. The worlds in the Basilisk Nebula tried to rebel against Hub, using genetically engineered soldiers to make up for the disparity of sheer population. Though the last one came close to succeeding, they ultimately failed and were brought back under control.
- On a dimensional scale, the Monster invasions are brought about due to Patterson tech causing massive devastation in a parallel reality. The Monsters are more-or-less special agents sent by this reality to destroy it and save their own.
One thousand one.
One thousand two.
One thousand three.
One thousand four.
