Less than two months after the official release of Crucible, Amazon Games' first major game for PCs on Steam, the company chose to remove it from the store.
Its developers at Relentless Studios (a subsidiary of Amazon) have announced plans to withdraw the free-to-play MOBA from Steam starting tomorrow, July 1, while continuing to operate the game in "Closed BETA" for those who have already downloaded the game (or paid for by one of their cosmetic DLC "founder packs").
In an announcement on the game's official website, its developers describe this change as a way to "help us focus on providing the best possible experience for our players."
As far as remaining players are concerned, however, this guarantee may seem a bit hollow, as their exclusion will likely reduce the available player pool of their small base (as of this writing, there were just over 200 players left). concurrent online).
While the game will continue to follow on Steam, as of 12pm on July 1st, new players will no longer be able to browse the game and download its client for free.
Instead, they need to sign up to play on the official website, where they await an invite to the closed BETA. (If you want to be a part of the closed BETA without registration, go to your Steam client and add Crucible to your library now.)
Relentless Studios, responsible for the game, was already able to make drastic changes to the Crucible client last month, most notably removing an entire game mode to better focus players within the game.
While this demonstrates Amazon Games' inexperience with the games-as-a-service sector, this was already a worrying issue when Crucible launched in mid-May.
It's still unclear why the company chose to release the game to the public, prior to a closed BETA, and is now doing so.
While Relentless has offered insights into its plans to update and develop the game over time, the studio has yet to commit to adding built-in text chat - serious oversight of a game that can't be won without coordinated strategies - or systems to handle dropouts, so dedicated players aren't punished for engaging in unbeatable 3v4 or 2v4 matches.
