Crucible, the new competitive team-based FPS from Amazon Games, is being put into closed beta to give developer Relentless Studios time to go back to the drawing board.
Note that Crucible isn't going back into closed beta. It was never in a public beta to begin with. Crucible launched in full on Steam on May 21. But between its lack of marketing, iffy connection, and awkward combat, its player count quickly declined. As of July 30, its 24-hour peak player count is 151, down from a launch peak of 10,600 players, according to Steamcharts.
Relentless Studios initially concentrated its remaining players by closing all but one of Crucible's game modes, but it seems Crucible's launch has been so underwhelming that it's decided to start from square one by quite literally un-releasing the game.
The studio says that the Crucible experience will remain "pretty much the same" even while it's in its retroactive beta. The game will remain online, it won't require a new download, and items and progression already earned will carry over into the 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," a blog post reads. "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."
The initial beta opt-in period will end tomorrow, July 1, at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm BST. If you download Crucible before then, you'll be able to start it up and play like normal. If you get the game after that point, you'll need to sign up through the game's website as you would a standard, pre-release closed beta.
It's unclear how long this post-release beta will last, but Relentless says that "when we exit beta, it will be based on your feedback and the metrics that we see in-game."
With this news, I suppose we can put Crucible back on the list of upcoming games of 2020 (and beyond).
