2K and Turtle Rock announced what they are calling, Shear Madness, for Evolve Stage 2. With Shear Madness, they expect to pump out five new updates over the course of five weeks. These updates will include three new characters, three new maps, a new game mode, and new community requested features.

In the first update players will now have access to a new Medic named Caira Diaz, or Quantum Caira, who allegedly died during an unexpected energy surge at an EbonStar facility which housed a black skin “Wraith” known as the Phantom of Shear. Quantum Caira’s healing ability can be attributed to her ability to harness Generyst energy, which in turn creates a Regeneration Field. Along with healing she can also use “amplified Proton energy” which creates damage barriers. Meaning any monster that enters will take damage as long as they are within the field. All founders will have access to Quantum Caira automatically, whereas non-founders will need to unlock her in the store using silver keys.

They don’t stop there, the update will also feature new bug fixes as well as some adjustment to the balance of players. Apparently multiplayer matches will no longer be based on account rank, but rather a skill rank that has been in place since the beginning. There will also be a new Advanced Hunter Tutorial designed to show individuals the different methods of the game and the types of play from each style of character.

Players will also now have the option to try out a character or monster before they invest time and money to get them. All players have to do is head to the solo mode, once there they will have access to all content, allowing for a thorough test before pulling the trigger on a big investment.

It seems as though the game is seeing much better numbers since the reboot with Evolve Stage 2. Evolve did not see the type of numbers that they believed the game would bring in.The studio has openly talked about the type of numbers they had been seeing prior to Stage 2.

From fewer than 200 PC players just days before the re-launch on July 7, Evolve Stage 2 now has more than 2-million players worldwide in less than one month. In that time, we’ve released weekly patches and hot fixes and we will continue to tune the Stage 2 experience every week.

The goal moving forward is for them to consistently put out new content for the game and continue to build on their momentum since the game became free to play.