Amazon's Crucible Is Removing Two of Its Three Game Modes

Amazon Games and Relentless Studios' free-to-play competitive team-based shooter video game Crucible only just launched in late May for PC, but it is already removing two of its three total game modes, according to the developer. As of writing, the Alpha Hunters game mode has already been disabled with Harvester Command set to follow in the future, leaving only the 4-vs-4 objective-based game mode Heart of the Hives. The update makes it sounds like Heart of the Hives has been the most popular game mode, and so the team is focusing its attention there.

"The community has rallied around Heart of the Hives in an amazing way," the announcement from Crucible developer Colin Johanson and the rest of the team reads in part. "Moving forward, we'll be putting all of our efforts towards Heart of the Hives and what we can do to make that mode shine. 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. This does mean that we'll be retiring Harvester Command and Alpha Hunters for the foreseeable future. We'll be removing Alpha Hunters from the list of game modes soon, and Harvester Command once our new player experience has been improved."

The full post goes on to note that development priorities for Crucible include voice chat, a surrender option, a system for dealing with AFK players, an expanded ping system, and even potentially some kind of minimap. The whole thing is worth a read if you're at all interested in the game, as it would appear that the team is dedicated to seriously improving the game's infrastructure while also specifically updating it to a more Heart of the Hives-centric experience. (Even if I, personally, loved Alpha Hunters, it makes total sense that the team would focus on what's working rather than what's not.)

The free-to-play video game Crucible is now available for PC via Steam, and launched on May 20th. Crucible is the first of two games set to release from Amazon Games this year with New World, an MMO set on a supernatural, 17-century continent, expected to launch in August. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Crucible right here.

What do you think about Crucible removing two game modes? Have you given the free-to-play title a go yet? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!