Even though the countdown on the Evolve website mentioned this morning is still running, a post on the Turtle Rock Forums reveals the news that the asymmetrical shooter is going free-to-play, something people suspected might be the plan when the game ceased being available for sale earlier today (thanks jacobvandy). The lengthy post includes a frank discussion of how Evolve lost a lot of enthusiasm over controversial DLC implementation after launching to mixed reviews, and how the elimination of the purchase price and a "vigorous overhaul" of the game are at the core of how they plan to "get that magic back." They will re-launch the game for free as a beta tomorrow as they work towards evolving Evolve to better match audience expectations. Here's word on those plans and how they will compensate those who have already paid for the game:

Making Evolve free on PC is going to be a process that takes time and a lot of hard work, but we believe in Evolve and we believe in you, our players and want to do what’s best for both!

Here’s how it’s going to work: We’re going to make Evolve free on PC as a Beta starting on July 7. This is going to allow us to hit our new server infrastructure really hard and we need your help testing. Stuff could break, and that’s our hope, because that will give us time to improve things as we go. We’ll parse out major Beta revisions, updates and features over a period of weeks and months -- a plan we're going to continually communicate here. This allows us to test new features and major changes to make our game more accessible and ever closer to the joy we saw when we first showed our baby to the world. Just as importantly, this Beta plan gives us the flexibility and time we need to keep fixing bugs and making Evolve more stable.

“What about those who paid for Evolve? What about Season Passers?”

Anyone who owns classic Evolve will be given “Founder” status in the new free version, and all the content you already own comes with you to the new version. As long as we work on Evolve, we will show our appreciation for our committed fans and early adopters with gifts, rewards, and special access. Why? Because you believed like we did, and we will never forget that.

As part of our promise to recapture the magic and improve the Evolve experience across-the-board, we're going to ratchet up our communication with the community. We will be continually updating our social channels, our forums and our website to let you know how it’s going.