Set on an alien planet in the distant future, gamers hunt their prey in adrenaline-pumping 4V1 matches. Players experience Evolve as a first-person shooter when playing cooperatively as the four hunters, while they control the monster in the third-person perspective, providing a gameplay experience unique to Evolve. 

Meet Abe. He doesn’t have an exotic pet helping him track prey, nor is he some grizzled hunter that’s eager for his next big kill. He’s just really tricky. Abe’s a bounty hunter – a smuggler, a thief and potentially the sneakiest Hunter of the bunch. Let’s breakdown how:

Abe’s buckshot-slinger isn’t your conventional firearm. This Custom Shotgun spread will change size and shape depending upon the speed with which he’s shooting. What does that mean, exactly? It means, squeeze that trigger as fast as you can and you’ll have close range pellets flying scattershot. But if you do slow, methodical trigger pulls, you get slightly more accuracy at a longer range.

If there is any one ability that a Monster player should dread, it’s Abe’s Tracking Dart. You see, Abe is able to tag any corpse or wildlife he comes across. If the Monster player takes the bait – AKA snacks on the tagged wildlife – a GPS tracker activates in its belly. Of course, you could always just shoot the tracking dart directly into the Monster and track it that way as well. So, good luck to any Monster trying to juke a Hunter squad tracking it’s every step.

Before you start thinking Abe’s darts are too over-powered, remember he doesn’t have sound spikes to mark the environment, nor does he have some handy pet to sniff out tracks or revive the party.

The nefarious Stasis grenades lock down a Monster. Even a high-flying Kraken can get grounded with a well-timed Stasis Grenade toss. By binding these electronic shackles, it makes movement incredibly slow while a Monster is in range. Chuck a Stasis Grenade and it arms immediately, meaning it will slow the monster down even as it travels through the air. This is how it’s possible to toss a grenade up and yank Kraken out of the sky.

Unlike Maggie’s Harpoon Mines or Griffin’s Harpoon gun, there’s no tether for the Monster to break, instead the Monster is in slow motion lockdown for about 15 seconds, or until it gets itself out of the grenade’s area-of-effect, whichever comes first. Considering that you can toss five of these at a time, a smart Hunter that can line a Monster’s path with Stasis Grenades can change the entire dynamic of a match.

One pro-tip from the dev-team: Toss Stasis Grenades onto ledges or high cliffs, and you’re effectively creating a “no-fly” zone.

Want to see Abe in action? Tune in to Friday’s Evolve Live stream at 3pm PT.

Evolve is available for pre-order at participating retailers. Those who pre-order the game from participating retailers will be rewarded with the Monster Expansion Pack, which includes the Savage Goliath skin at launch and a new monster character as soon as it becomes available after Evolve is released.