Amazon Game Studios' Crucible is a run-of-the-mill 3rd person sci-fi shooter that takes established aspects from different genres and incorporates them without much creative flare. Announced back in 2016, Crucible promised to be a "last one standing third-person shooter" where making and breaking alliances would be of key importance. While still true in some regards, thankfully, Amazon branched out from this initial idea to provide players with a slightly different take on other well-known game modes.
Amazon Game Studios was established in 2012 and has mostly made smaller games for the Amazon Appstore, Facebook, Google Play store, and the iOS app store. Their first console release came last year in the form The Grand Tour Game; a smaller title that had players play through episodes of the Amazon Original The Grand Tour. The Grand Tour Game was received with about as much enthusiasm as Crucible has been given, which is to say, painfully average.
Upon first look, the visuals in Crucible are not much to phone home about. They're of a perfectly serviceable quality, though lack much in the way of unique art direction and originality. The Hunters - heroes that the players take control of - are easily distinguishable from each other and are adequately quirky/edgy/spunky. The characters that aren’t Aliens come from unique ethnic backgrounds and don’t necessarily fall into racial stereotypes either, though there are still stereotypes familiar to players of the genre, like strict militant woman, laid back guy with big gun, etc. There are currently 10 playable Hunters, whose designs include an aquatic alien sniper named Ajonah, the obligatory Call-of-Duty-man, and Earl (just Earl).
The gameplay is the most unique aspect of Crucible. It borrows elements from MOBAs, Hero Shooters, and Battle Royales, providing a familiar yet somewhat unique experience. At its core, Crucible is a 3rd person sci-fi shooter that has players select a Hunter upon queuing for a match and engage in PvE and PvP simultaneously in order to level their characters and complete objectives. Each Hunter has different base stats and a unique set of six abilities that provide players with distinctive playstyles: two Weapon skills, an Auxiliary skill, a Movement skill, and a Signature skill.
Each match starts the players at level 1, providing an even playing field for new players and veterans alike. Throughout each match, players will acquire Essence, a blue substance that takes the place of in-match XP. Players can earn Essence in a number of ways like capturing objectives called Harvesters or taking down hostile wildlife. More Essence means more levels; with each level, Hunter abilities are upgraded alongside a boost to max health. There is currently one map for players to explore and battle it out on. It's not nearly as spacious as other Battle Royale game maps, but not too small to feel cramped either. Crucible offers controller support with fully customizable inputs, but its default control scheme feels more natural for a mouse & keyboard playstyle.
There were three different game modes to play at launch (but two have been removed): Alpha Hunters, Harvester Command, and Heart of the Hive - the latter of which the devs are solely focusing on going forward. On the surface, Alpha Hunters seemed like a standard Duos mode in a Battle Royale, but with the twist that if your initial partner dies, you can form a temporary alliance with another solo player. Emphasis on temporary, as regardless of whether your initial or ramshackle team sticks it out to the end, there can only be one. Harvester Command played a lot like Domination in Call of Duty games; an 8v8 where each team tries to hold control of 5 harvesters for points. Heart of the Hive is an objective-based PvPvE game mode that has 2 teams of 4 race against each other to defeat hives and collect their hearts; first team to 3 wins.
Crucible is free-to-play on Steam, and currently only for PC. Players can purchase founders packs of different degrees, each giving an escalating amount of in-game currency, battle pass points, and cosmetic items. The in-game store does feature micro-transactions and a battle pass, though, by the nature of the gameplay, everything in it is cosmetic.
Not everything is middle-of-the-road mediocrity for Crucible and it gets worse. Players excited to experience the newest battle royale contender have been plagued with graphical issues, gameplay bugs, and connectivity problems since launch. Crucible also seems to be missing several features common to games of this genre; namely in-game voice chat. Instead, there is a posting on the main screen that encourages players to use Discord to find people to play with, and presumably use Discord's voice chat system.
As far as a first entry into the "big leagues" of gaming goes, Amazon fails to impress, and Crucible's stark lack of originality and flair prevent it from standing out amongst the competition. Crucible is a fine game, but that's it. At the moment, the devs have extended the "pre-season" to begin working on some of the basics and addressing feedback.
Crucible is currently available free-to-play on PC.