The DLC plans for Evolve have been getting a lot of flack since their reveal, the community (for the most part) has blamed the developer, Turtle Rock Studios, for money grabbing or ignoring community wishes.
If you aren't familiar with the Evolve's DLC, it goes something like this: On the launch day alternate monster skins will be available and additional Hunters will be available in the upcoming days after the games launch. You can purchase them all in a Season Pass ($25) or separately ($30 in total). There is also a $15 Monster Expansion pack that brings a Savage Goliath skin and the fourth Monster, Behemoth.
Turtle Rock will be releasing free maps for the game 'forever.'
The co-founder of Turtle Rock, Phil Robb, took to the forums to respond to the community's clamoring against the DLC. Robb clarified that while the alternate skins might be available at launch, none of the other DLC will be done. Had the studio completed the additional Hunters, they would be in the game. Here's an excerpt from his post:
When Evolve hits the shelves, none of the DLC will be done. Behemoth won't be done. None of the planned DLC hunters or monsters will be done. The only exception to this might be some skins that were working on now while we wait for all the final stages of packaging, manufacturing etc. to finish.
If we thought we could have finished all those monsters and hunters for ship we would have put them in the box. (Keep in mind, we pretty much have to have the game done about 2-3 months before it's available to you guys…we can keep fixing bugs and such, but content is locked.)
With that part of the argument cleared up, Robb addressed the second argument – the pay to win argument. Turtle Rock Studios will not be making DLC purchased Monsters or Hunters stronger than the ones available on launch day:
And NO, we won't be purposely making DLC hunters and monster overpowered to make people feel like they HAVE to buy them to stay competitive. We plan to keep things as balanced as possible for as long as people are playing the game.
It should be noted that Turtle Rock is developing the game and the publisher 2K is handling how the DLC and bundles are priced for release. Interestingly enough, we delved deeper into the affect of DLC and Publishers on the game industry recently, you can check that out here.