Amazon Pulls ‘Crucible’ Back into Closed Beta Weeks After Game’s Release

Kurt Schlosser, GeekWire
Kurt Schlosser covers the Geek Life beat for GeekWire. A longtime journalist, photographer and designer, he has worked previously for NBC News, msnbc.com and the Seattle P-I.
Amazon Pulls ‘Crucible’ Back into Closed Beta Weeks After Game’s Release

Little more than a month after a much-hyped entry into big-budget video games, Amazon is pulling back "Crucible," its new free-to-play PC shooter, and moving the title to closed beta.


"Crucible" is developed by Amazon-owned Relentless Studios, and in a blog post on Tuesday, franchise lead Colin Johanson cited the need to "focus on providing the best possible experience for our players as we continue to make the game better."

The game has failed to generate much positive traction. The Verge said "lackluster characters, combat, and art style made it largely forgettable" and that "Crucible" also suffered from "a bit of an identity crisis by trying to be a bit of everything at once."

According to Business Insider, "Crucible" had around 25,000 concurrent players at peak, the day after its launch. Two days after launch, it had already disappeared from Steam's top 100 — a list of most-played games on Steam that bottoms out around 5,000 concurrent players.

Players who have downloaded the game will still be able to play it through Steam.

"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," Johanson wrote. "When we exit beta, it will be based on your feedback and the metrics that we see in-game."

The game was a litmus test of sorts for Amazon Game Studios as it looks to be a bigger player in the lucrative and crowded video game industry. Amazon acquired Twitch in 2014 for nearly $1 billion and established the games division eight years ago, but hasn't launched many original titles and ran into several hiccups with canceled projects and layoffs.

This story first appeared on GeekWire.

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Meet SVT Fleet Solutions: Revolutionizing Fleet Management for a Zero Emission Future

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

Meet SVT Fleet Solutions: Revolutionizing Fleet Management for a Zero Emission Future
Evan Xie

Less than a month ago, the California Air Resources Board announced new regulations that aim to phase out fossil fuels in medium and heavy duty trucks by 2045. Known as Advanced Clean Fleets, the rule caused major concerns across the transportation industry and has sent many fleet owners and operators scrambling for solutions that will help their business comply with the ambitious timelines.

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Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Why Cirque du Soleil Tapped LA Game Maker Gamefam for its First Virtual World
Photo: Gamefam/Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group

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