One of the first real games coming out of Amazon’s game publishing division, Crucible, has not had the sort of glowing “Early Access” launch that the company expected. It’s been underwhelming enough that developer Relentless Games is pulling the game back into a closed beta state.
A blog post yesterday laid out what Relentless Games is going to be doing, and what’s going to be staying the same.
For the most part, your experience as a Crucible player will stay pretty much the same while we’re in beta. One of the biggest changes you’ll see is that we’re going to schedule dedicated time each week when we as devs will be playing with the community and soliciting feedback. The game will be accessible 24/7 so you can continue to self-organize matches with other players—we recommend joining our Discord server to find players to queue against. You’ll still launch Crucible through Steam (you don’t even need a new download), you’ll keep all the progress and customization items you’ve already earned, and the battle pass, reward tracks, and in-game store will continue to be supported.
This particular announcement is not entirely surprising since a previous post from Relentless Games indicated that they would be shutting down two of the game’s three modes to work on improving the remaining “Heart of The Hives” mode. However, there has been speculation as to whether they would be trying to keep working in an Early Access framework or if they would be merely canceling the game entirely. The move may make sense in the long run, mainly if they can get things to a point where Relentless can find an excellent way to keep both casual and competitive players happy.
As of 9 a.m. PDT, any future Crucible players will need to apply to the closed beta through the game’s website.
