After a less than ideal launch last month, retail giant Amazon’s first fully-fledged game, hero-shooter Crucible, is shedding some excess fat.
In a statement published late last week, developer Relentless Studios announced that it is axing two of the three existing Crucible modes. The developer explains that players have flocked to the Heart of the Hives mode in droves, while the other two, Harvest Command and Alpha Hunters, have received little love from the first wave of Crucible players.
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Relentless Studios explains, “The community has rallied around Heart of the Hives in an amazing way. 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.”
By doubling down on Heart of the Hives, the developer hopes to offer a more focused title by polishing its core-systems with the mode in mind. Relentless has detailed a two-phase strategy for achieving this.
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Firstly, the developer will focus on bringing requested features to Crucible, such as voice chat, an improved ping system, a mini-map, a surrender option, and a system to handle AFK players. Alongside this, work will be done to improve performance and gameplay across the board, notably by enhancing framerates, hit feedback, matchmaking, and introducing tutorials to help first-time players get to grips with the Crucible experience.
The second phase will introduce new systems and refinements to improve the Crucible experience. Relentless explains these will be chosen based on player feedback. Still, the developer already has its eye on rejigging the Heart of the Hives map, polishing up enemy creatures, adding in custom games, and boosting Crucible’s social features.
While Relentless pools its resources to improve the game, the developer is sidelining Crucible’s first season. “We’re also going to use our time in Pre-Season as a chance to go all-in on the parts of Crucible that are resonating most strongly with you, our community,” Relentless says.
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