Evolve, the newest game from Turtle Rock Studios, is a 4-versus-1 first-person shooter in which soldier “Hunters” team up to battle a human-controlled monster in a variety of alien environments. It has all of the expected characteristics of a multiplayer-focused game, including perks and skins, but what separates it is the main conceit: Asymmetrical multiplayer.

That is itself an interesting design choice, not entirely new but part of a growing trend in the industry. In that way, this game is basically an end-boss battle played over and over again.

Even though the concept hasn’t been done to death, Turtle Rock Studios has a proven track record worthy of making Evolve a major 2015 release. The team’s most acclaimed effort, Left 4 Dead, still boasts an engaged online community, so it should go without saying that Evolve is blessed / cursed with high expectations.

The game showed really well at industry and fan events, but as with any online-focused game, the question remains: will it hold a player base well beyond the initial grace period of its release?

Despite some issues concerning the game’s longevity (and DLC plans), Evolve nevertheless remains a challenging, stable, well-realized gaming experience.

In Evolve, players choose from one of four Hunter classes: Assault, Support, Medic, and Trapper. Assault is your basic soldier, while Support protects the team and offers additional firepower. The Medic class is tasked with reviving injured comrades, and the Trapper tracks down the monster. Each possesses its own strengths and weaknesses, and the dev team has made sure to balance the game so that you can’t just choose a class and then go in guns-a-blazing, unless, of course, you have no real desire to defeat the Monster.

In addition, players can choose to be the Monster, and the variety of monster types ranges from the Godzilla-esque Goliath to the Cthulhu-ian Wraith and the classic Kraken. Like with each Hunter class, the Monsters possess different abilities. Goliath breathes fire and pummels hunters into submission, the Kraken rains down lightning on hapless warriors, and the Wraith uses teleportation and subterfuge to kill off Hunters en masse.

Besides evade and kill the Hunters, the Monster’s function is to level up by killing and devouring the less domineering creatures in the game. Monsters begin at Level 1 (relatively killable) and end at Level 3 (nigh upon invincible), so the element of time becomes extremely important.

As players progress in each class, they unlock new characters, whose powers and abilities differ from their “classmates.” Unlocking them in multiplayer modes requires players to master the current character’s abilities, measured through hitting certain numerical benchmarks (6600 damage, and so on). The progression tips the odds in favor of the hunters, but at no point does the struggle become easy for the hunters. It’s a continuous struggle.

Regarding upgrades, the way that the game engages players with numbers, too, is kind of fascinating. It has a pretty in-depth system for interpreting data from matches and using that data to reward or encourage players. After each match, for example, your performance is compared against the worldwide baseline, which then informs how your play stacked up.

During matches themselves, the Monster is so overpowered, to defeat it will require a concerted effort from the Hunters. That goes for each of the three (currently released) Monsters. As mentioned above, a gang of single-minded vigilantes is much less likely to take down one of the creatures than a cooperative unit. It really comes down playing the class.

If everyone plays the character as intended and the team works together — and they manage to track down the monster before it reaches Level 3 — it’s not impossible to earn a quick kill.

However, let the monster reach Level 3, and it becomes a lot — a LOT — less pleasant to track down “the target.” If that happens, you’ll spend a lot more time watching other players from a postmortem position, waiting for the Dropship clock to wind down so you can rejoin the match. Not only that, but the ultimate maguffin for each level comes in the form of a reactor that can be destroyed by a Level 3 Monster, so players are encouraged to take the thing down anytime before that final evolution occurs.

All of this is to say: if you’re the Monster, the game is a whole lot more simple. Your job is to evolve (level up) and destroy every single thing in your path. I will say that I found myself more excited to play the basic Hunter than to take on the responsibility of tormenting the four-person team, but I also cannot deny that I’m probably in the minority on that.

In addition to the seismic destruction put forth by the Monsters, each environment is filled with an abundance of hazards, including man-eating plants and other creatures. Even if finding the Monster requires some tracking, you’re not going for an idle walk in the woods. There’s still plenty to kill and maim you within the confines of the arena.

Logistically, the matchmaking works well, based on my personal experiences, and it seems to do a fairly complex job of evening out the fairness of play in each individual match. No Level 20 player is going to be paired with a Level 1 beginner. The dev team boats on the Evolve website that balancing is one of their main concerns, and so far I think they’ve done a fine job of keeping games interesting.

That process is further streamlined by the way the game front loads user preference in choosing a Hunter class. New players are required to rank the classes 1-5 (including the Monster), and the matchmaking attempts to accommodate those wishes. I’m sure class popularity might complicate that somewhat, but I’ve managed to be Hank (Support) at least 75% of the time, which was, honestly, surprising for me.

Furthermore, I didn’t experience any lag or slowdown, even when the game warned me that my internet connection might cause some issues. The load times might guard against that, but it’s definitely nice to play the game without a drop in frame rate.

The game looks awesome, from the highly-stylized Hunters to the environments, which are definitely modeled on the game’s influences. One arena, for example — The Aviary — is reminiscent of, say, the jungle from Predator. The cartoonish character designs are somewhat reminiscent of Team Fortress 2, and that’s not the only place where one could draw those kinds of inferences, but the overall aesthetic works.

Evolve is serious but doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is definitely a plus.

Its only real problems, in my opinion, extend from the time players will potentially spend waiting. The load times are nowhere near those of, say, PS1-level, for sure, but being a multiplayer-only game, the wait times will be more significant. The game runs efficiently in a lot of ways; all I’m saying is, maybe have something by your side while you wait for matches to begin.

That fact is compounded by other non-action-oriented aspects of being in-game in Evolve. The discrepancy between the time spent hunting down the Monster and actually battling it can be quite wide, depending on the skill of the Hunters / Monster. That particular factor can account for much more actual playtime than one might expect. A few matches have dragged on far longer than necessary merely because the Monster successfully evaded our searches.

Ultimately, Evolve is a solid multiplayer experience, but it is also quite ambitious. Putting out an ostensibly multiplayer-only game plants a seed in the minds of gamers, and that question is: What is this game’s shelf life? For much higher-profile brands, like Call of Duty, the question doesn’t matter, precisely because the series is guaranteed to have players. For a new intellectual property, the uphill battle is acquiring and keeping users.

Still, Evolve is, despite the controversy over its DLC plans, an extremely solid and stable game experience. I’ve had zero problems connecting to servers or engaging in the game’s various play modes. The sort of repetitive maps can be problematic down the road, I’m sure, but for the time being, I’ve hardly noticed it.

The Final Word: Time will tell if it holds players’ attention the way it wants to, but judging by the studio’s plans for supporting the game through DLC, it appears that Evolve will continue to garner attention long after this week’s initial release. In the meantime, I’ll be hunting Monsters.