It may sound silly on retrospect, but Evolve Stage 1 is the game that turned me on to asymmetrical multiplayer games. I remain an ardent sycophant of Evolve despite its many well documented shortcomings, and maybe one day I'll write a whole review about how actually everyone was playing that game wrong, but in the meantime I find myself moving from one 4v1 game to the next, like a junky desperately searching for a high more pure than his first. I'm not proud of what I am, but at least I know what I am.
Unfortunately, most asymmetrical games dry up pretty quickly due to people bailing over perceived imbalances in the dynamic between "survivors" and the "monster." Ensuring four people aren't an inherently overwhelming force or giving far too much power to the monster as a counterbalance can't be easy. Thankfully, Evil Dead mostly succeeds where other asymmetrical games fails, but not without some caveats.
These kind of games are constantly evolving, so this review is for the "current as of the time of this writing" version 1.0.5.
Survivors are broken up into four classes: Leader, Warrior, Hunter, and Support. Characters have their own unique specials, passives, and skill trees that provide some additional versatility. They're still pretty straight forward, however. Generally speaking, Leaders provide buffs, Supports heal, Warriors are tanky and focus on melee attacks, and Hunters rely on firearms. Comparatively, playing as the Demon is a lot more complex, requiring a keen understanding of the map, characters, and party dynamics to effectively lay traps, ambushes, and ultimately kill the survivors before they can complete all their objectives. The Demon can choose between three types of Deadites with their own defined advantages and boss characters, which also have skill trees, passives, and unique skills.
In most asymmetrical games, one weak link in the chain can easily sink the survivors. I've found this to be less true in Evil Dead, where a couple competent players with well developed characters can all but carry a team. I've spent most of my time playing as Army of Darkness Ash, who with the right set of skills is borderline unkillable. This is also true of the demon, and I've encountered a few who were able to quickly wipe the survivors out, although I've still won a disproportional amount of matches due to most demon players being absolute garbage. The tutorial for the demon is partly to blame in how linear it is, which leaves players woefully underprepared for actual matches, and while some tactics seem viable in the tutorial they tend to provide too little of a reward for too high a cost in practice (such as possessing cars, which is just a waste of energy.) At times this makes for really dull matches, but when you find a demon player who knows their stuff, Evil Dead becomes exhilarating.
Cross-play will hopefully help Evil Dead avoid an early death due to player attrition, but this too comes at the cost of stability. While my connection has mostly been fine, anytime I'm a passenger in a car the game starts to stutter and lag. My life partner Larry Davis would insist he's an excellent driver, but when I'm riding along it looks like he's deliberately trying to hit every stationary object in his path. Cross-play also comes at the consequence of PC players cheating, and Xbox's slow patch authentication resulting in version numbers becoming misaligned for days at a time, excluding them from matchmaking.
Issues that have plagued asymmetrical multiplayer games are undeniably present here, but Evil Dead still manages to be a cut above with a gameplay loop that feels fun and balancing that out-of-the-gate seems to be in a healthier place than most. Bugs and overall jank (any game that lets you vault but not walk over 1 foot tall obstacles can eat me) are the two main things that really hold it back, but hopefully this can be improved over time. It's hard for me to recommend this one at full price unless you're an absolute maniac for 4v1 like I am, but the promise of where Evil Dead: The Game can go definitely makes this one to keep your eye on.
For all I know it'll be dead in two months and that last sentence will make me look like a fool.
Unfortunately, most asymmetrical games dry up pretty quickly due to people bailing over perceived imbalances in the dynamic between "survivors" and the "monster." Ensuring four people aren't an inherently overwhelming force or giving far too much power to the monster as a counterbalance can't be easy. Thankfully, Evil Dead mostly succeeds where other asymmetrical games fails, but not without some caveats.
These kind of games are constantly evolving, so this review is for the "current as of the time of this writing" version 1.0.5.
Survivors are broken up into four classes: Leader, Warrior, Hunter, and Support. Characters have their own unique specials, passives, and skill trees that provide some additional versatility. They're still pretty straight forward, however. Generally speaking, Leaders provide buffs, Supports heal, Warriors are tanky and focus on melee attacks, and Hunters rely on firearms. Comparatively, playing as the Demon is a lot more complex, requiring a keen understanding of the map, characters, and party dynamics to effectively lay traps, ambushes, and ultimately kill the survivors before they can complete all their objectives. The Demon can choose between three types of Deadites with their own defined advantages and boss characters, which also have skill trees, passives, and unique skills.
In most asymmetrical games, one weak link in the chain can easily sink the survivors. I've found this to be less true in Evil Dead, where a couple competent players with well developed characters can all but carry a team. I've spent most of my time playing as Army of Darkness Ash, who with the right set of skills is borderline unkillable. This is also true of the demon, and I've encountered a few who were able to quickly wipe the survivors out, although I've still won a disproportional amount of matches due to most demon players being absolute garbage. The tutorial for the demon is partly to blame in how linear it is, which leaves players woefully underprepared for actual matches, and while some tactics seem viable in the tutorial they tend to provide too little of a reward for too high a cost in practice (such as possessing cars, which is just a waste of energy.) At times this makes for really dull matches, but when you find a demon player who knows their stuff, Evil Dead becomes exhilarating.
Cross-play will hopefully help Evil Dead avoid an early death due to player attrition, but this too comes at the cost of stability. While my connection has mostly been fine, anytime I'm a passenger in a car the game starts to stutter and lag. My life partner Larry Davis would insist he's an excellent driver, but when I'm riding along it looks like he's deliberately trying to hit every stationary object in his path. Cross-play also comes at the consequence of PC players cheating, and Xbox's slow patch authentication resulting in version numbers becoming misaligned for days at a time, excluding them from matchmaking.
Issues that have plagued asymmetrical multiplayer games are undeniably present here, but Evil Dead still manages to be a cut above with a gameplay loop that feels fun and balancing that out-of-the-gate seems to be in a healthier place than most. Bugs and overall jank (any game that lets you vault but not walk over 1 foot tall obstacles can eat me) are the two main things that really hold it back, but hopefully this can be improved over time. It's hard for me to recommend this one at full price unless you're an absolute maniac for 4v1 like I am, but the promise of where Evil Dead: The Game can go definitely makes this one to keep your eye on.
For all I know it'll be dead in two months and that last sentence will make me look like a fool.
2 Comments
Nah this is a straight 3/5. Slightly more good outweighing the bad but man this game is a mess and bad demon players can make it a real snooze sometimes.
LarryDavis
1 year ago
Anyway this score is too low, get good and stop exclusively playing the broken OP character, noob