I’ll be honest—I came to Evolve late. Like, when the game was already dead. It’s been a lamented loss in my friend group ever since its decline. The player base evaporated, and I arrived to the party to find local games the only content left to peruse. Man, it’s fun, though. The game’s got flaws, sure, but it’s nothing that an attentive developer would not have been able to smooth over in post-launch updates.

I think Evolve was just ahead of its time. If it had been released alongside games like Fortnite or Overwatch, then a different story might have unfolded. A major release of a free-to-play game would have been more enticing on the financial side. Epic has proven with their mega-hit that you don’t need the upfront price of a game to make money. So Evolve could have started out with an appeal to players before making them gamble on a $60 game that four to five players would all need to have.

More frequent updates could have fixed many of the post-launch issues that arose when players started encountering problems. Turtle Rock could have addressed these needs on a speedy schedule, rather than the throttled pace at which they were able to patch the game. You’ll always have balancing issues with an asymmetrical game like the 4v1 multiplayer system that Turtle Rock introduced in Evolve. But developers like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft have proven that it’s possible to continually tweak the balancing of a game while keeping the faith of the player community. Evolve could have experienced that same level of support from the developer and players.

Turtle Rock Studios has produced great games. They’ve given us Left 4 Dead, which, with its sequel, is a landmark in my gaming history. They reboot movies all the time, for better or worse. I wish Turtle Rock could get another chance at Evolve. It arrived before the gaming world was ready for it, and it left before we realized what could have been.