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Amazon's team-based shooter Crucible "retiring" two of its three modes

Crucible, Amazon's recently launched free-to-play team-based shooter, will be "retiring" two of its three modes "for th…

www.eurogamer.net

Crucible, Amazon's recently launched free-to-play team-based shooter, will be "retiring" two of its three modes "for the foreseeable future".

When Crucible was announced back in 2016, it was touted as a "last one standing third-person shooter", but, as developer Relentless told Eurogamer last month, things shifted dramatically during development. By the time Crucible launched on 20th May, it had morphed into a team-based shooter closer to a MOBA, featuring three distinct modes.

Alpha Hunters mode is designed to offer a battle-royale-esque fight for survival against seven other teams of two, while Harvester Command sees two teams of eight players attempting to capture and hold control points around the map. Last up is Heart of the Hives, pitting players not only against other teams but giant creatures that dropped hearts upon defeat, with the winning team being the first to secure three hearts.

In a new developer update, however, Relentless has announced it will be "retiring" all but Hearts of the Hive mode, which it says is where an overwhelming number of all matches are played. "Focusing on one mode allows us to refine the design of core systems without the compromises we needed to make to support three game modes", it explained.

While jettisoning two thirds of the game a little over two weeks after launch might raise a few eyebrows, Relentless' Colin Johanson, speaking in a developer video accompanying the studio's blogpost, insisted these sorts of core changes were always planned for Crucible's current "pre-season" period - although he acknowledged the developer "could have done a better job" explaining that in advance. "We won't begin Season 1 until we feel and we hear from our community that the game is ready to begin its first major live season", he continued.

 

[EviLore]

 

[Knitted Knight]

The smell of a flop.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

The smell of a flop.

Indeed, Cerny-san

 

[Robot Carnival]

if I'm not a big fan of (read: hates) battle royale games, does this game have anything that would interest me at all?

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

if I'm not a big fan of (read: hates) battle royale games, does this game have anything that would interest me at all?

It's kinda a mini-MOBA, I guess? Your team competes for the objective against the other team, there are lite PvE elements, pace and getting back into battle can be pretty slow. Not a lot of impact in combat

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

"Amazon and Google are our main competitors"

 

[hyperbertha]

Both Google and Amazon are entirely clueless about gaming culture. A free to play moba like is about as creative as I expect them to get.

 

[Guilty_AI]

It should just retire all three of them.
Jokes aside, i doubt Amazon cares about a flop. They can just keep throwing money into making and remaking games until it somehow works. This was probably their strategy in the first place.

"Amazon and Google are our main competitors"

I know its sarcasm, but wasn't he talking about cloud gaming?

 

[RespawnX]

Both Google and Amazon are entirely clueless about gaming culture. A free to play moba like is about as creative as I expect them to get.

Amazon once simply sold books online, later they were clueless about servers and Google simply was a search engine which didn't require a fee to register your page. You make took a look how far this companies came. Today they are clueless but they will adapt and evolve business, they know how profitable gaming business can be. Don't underestimate a billion-dollar corporation with the intention of conquering new markets.

 

[Mossybrew]

Honestly not a bad move, Battleborn should have done this, it had one mode that really showcased the game and like two others that were just kinda meh and only served to split up the playerbase.

 

[Great Hair]

Said to see Colin working now with Amazon. Not sure anymore if he was any better with ANet (GW) prior.

 

[Spukc]

I am starting to gag reading about seasonal passes right now.

Well done game publishers.
Another new thing that is really fucked up about gaming.

 

[SUPERGGK]

Man ngl, after seeing the logo of this game, I have a sudden urge to play quake 3 arena again. Now that's a great game.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Sounds like Google has some competition in the market of quickly abandoning failed products only recently brought to market.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

The mode they are keeping was not fun at all during my brief time with it around launch. That's the one they are going all in on?

 

[Bryank75]

Games are very tough to make and even harder to make a very good one... Amazon have very little experience and will take a long time to get anywhere.

 

[Cato]

Both Google and Amazon are entirely clueless about gaming culture. A free to play moba like is about as creative as I expect them to get.

Never heard about it to be honest.
Is it available on mobile? Does it have a mode where you click the button and the game plays itself for the next few hours while you do other things?

I actually don't even care if I find out or not.

 

[hyperbertha]

Amazon once simply sold books online, later they were clueless about servers and Google simply was a search engine which didn't require a fee to register your page. You make took a look how far this companies came. Today they are clueless but they will adapt and evolve business, they know how profitable gaming business can be. Don't underestimate a billion-dollar corporation with the intention of conquering new markets.

They have the money to survive harsh failures and will probably brute force their way into the market. But everything they make will still be trash and targeted to the lowest common denominator,

Never heard about it to be honest.
Is it available on mobile? Does it have a mode where you click the button and the game plays itself for the next few hours while you do other things?

I actually don't even care if I find out or not.

Its something like battleborn or bleeding edge I hear. No doubt infested with mtx to the teeth. Best to stay away.

 

[Psykodad]

"Amazon and Google are our main competitors"

 

[LordCBH]

Well damn. It’s almost like there’s an over abundance of class-based multiplayer shooters and that the odds of releasing one with staying power are super super low. I would even go so far as to say that basically any of them that release at this point are just uninspired.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Well damn. It’s almost like there’s an over abundance of class-based multiplayer shooters and that the odds of releasing one with staying power are super super low. I would even go so far as to say that basically any of them that release at this point are just uninspired.

Seems like a really hard genre/market to compete in right now. You gotta bring something special to the table.

 

[Vawn]

"Amazon and Google are our main competitors"

I'm a fantastic basketball player. Seven year-old girls are my main competitors - and I DOMINATE them!