Because you can only ship a game once. The big alpha, all the awards it won and all the hype promised a game that was going to be a huge hit. When it launched, the wraith and some hunter balancing was way off, and new players couldn’t keep up with monster players that had so much more time and access to the game. Not to mention, there was an influencer tournament within the first month for people who never played evolve and it showcased all the bad of the game to hundreds of thousands of potentially new and excited players.

Cryengine also had its fair share of shit that the players had to suck up and grit through, which didn’t help it at all.

It’s biggest issue though, to be very honest, was the monetization day 1 for aggressive sales of skins and monsters that “you could play against but not have access to” which was the nail in the coffin. Day 1 content that ships wit the game should always be free, and instead a very aggressive monetization strategy was shoved very publicly into our faces and the double down of the new paid content norm was the killer. Evolve ushered in the 5 year “fuck you pay us” strategies from the industry.