Evotinction Review

A Clever Blend of Strategy & Survival

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Title: Evotinction

Release: September 12, 2024

Platform: PS5 PC

Developer: Spikewave Games

Publisher: Astrolab Games

Genre: Action Adventure Stealth

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 8 Hours

Intro:

Have you ever heard of a stealth and hack game? Evotinction was the first time I’ve ever heard of the genre, and they seem to have fit the bill quite well. This game takes you through a research center full of acronyms and robots infected by a virus that causes them to harm humans. Let me share what you can expect from the game and give you my thoughts and ratings about the experience.

Where it starts

You wake up in a seemingly abandoned part of the facility, accompanied by your assistant genie, 0z, who informs you about a recent virus known as RED has started to infect the robots in HERE, the facility that you are head of, and what you need to do about it. After a quick rundown through your P.I. system and how to run some basic hacks, you’re ready to move in and try to resolve the problems while staying out of sight of the dangerous robots.

Can the kids watch

The graphics and language were clean, however, some of the story elements may be hard to understand for a younger audience. If the kids wanted to watch you play, they may enjoy the hacking and destruction of mean machinery, but the story may go over their little heads.

Stealth Work

Most of your time will be spent hiding behind cover, observing your surroundings to find a path forward. When starting all you had to worry about was visually hiding from robots, as you progress so do the equipped sensors of your enemies, forcing you to tread lightly as well as keep behind cover.

Hacking

After assessing the situation from a safe place, you can start hacking nearby equipment or robots. Sprinkler systems above can take some out for you to move forward or you can hack the robots themselves, like taking away their ability to see or hear anything around them. The possibilities seem endless as you unlock more abilities and dive deeper into the game. Or you can play a little more aggressively and use a short-range EMP taser to take out a robot, however, it does only have a few shots before it needs to recharge with batteries.

Upgrading Skills

You will find a lot of data lying around on the corpses of robots or inside hacked computers. The data is necessary for upgrading your skills in safe areas. Upgraded skills allow you to hack faster or provide more charges to the taser. Some skills were locked behind story progression before you could upgrade. Some materials needed for upgrading were only available when going through simulations.

Simulations

When a section of the game is beaten or a new skill is unlocked, you will find simulations related to them. In a simulation, you have one goal to accomplish promptly. After completion, you were graded and given rewards. The rewards were piles of data needed for upgrading, sometimes you would get special tokens needed as well.

The Enemies

Roaming the empty hallways of HERE were droves of robots, mostly infected Genies, small orbs floating around on the hunt. However, sometimes you would run across a specialty robot with super sight or vibrations that could sense you through walls, regardless of whether you were moving or not. There were even a few boss-level machines you would need to figure out how to take down.

Collectibles

While making your way through the game there were pictures, notes, and little statues you could find lying around. The notes were important for building the story and understanding what happened while the pictures and statues were there to give you a reason to explore every corner of the game, that is, if you were a completionist of sorts.

Grading

Just like the simulations, you were graded on how well you completed sections of the game. Looking at things like speed and whether you were noticed or not. Culminating in a final grade at the end. If you were able to get an excellent grade, the game would reward you with some powerful skills unlimited EMP charges, or even invisibility for a set time.

Outro:

Have you played or seen anything about Evotinction yet? I would love to hear from you in the comments below, and while you do that I’ll move forward to my final thoughts and ratings.

I’ve played plenty of stealth games in the past, but never specifically a stealth and hack game. I enjoyed the constant problems that needed to be solved to get through areas and progress the game. It seemed like there were any number of solutions to every section, allowing players to try out different skills and paths to reach their goals. I found a few skills that worked for me and never looked back. There were a lot of skills to choose from, and a lot of words that flew over my head in terms of programs and hacking.

It wasn’t a long game; my initial playthrough took me six hours and then two and a half hours for the new game plus. The new game-plus option allowed me to keep the skills and experience gained from a previous playthrough. The only annoying thing about that was that some abilities weren’t unlocked until specific parts of the story. So, I couldn’t rush through the beginning with awesome overpowered skills. There were a couple of really awesome skills to unlock if you could manage a very good grade by the end of a playthrough.

There were a few points of confusion between the gameplay and the story. Most of the game had a tutorial for new skills, but some situations did not present a solution for a while. The boss sequences were high stress trying to avoid getting attacked, and figuring out how to beat them. I did eventually find the answers, and thinking back it was an excellent experience, even with all the confusion.

And now, it’s time to get these ratings underway.

The visuals were great. Not many changes in the environment throughout the game and the characters looked good. Minor oddities, but nothing terrible, I’m handing out a 4

The story was interesting. Some spots were difficult to understand and follow, but it felt whole by the end, it’s getting a 3.

The gameplay is where this game shines. Between keeping watch on all the enemies and hacking it worked very well. Only a couple of times did something break causing my entire screen to go black, requiring a game restart to fix. I’m giving it a 4

There is some replayability to the game. It’s short, easy to get through, and rewards are offered for a good completion time. That’s another 3

It was fun figuring out all the possibilities in any given situation. There were some annoying sequences and enemies, but it was good overall. I’m handing out another 3.

Giving Evotinction an overall score of 3.4 out of 5. Earning it a spot on the top shelf. It’s definitely a unique experience that I would recommend if you are into stealth games. It may be short but I’m sure if you got into it, you would go through it a few times. Between the rewards and different solutions, there was a lot to figure out.