Amazon Crucible Released: Can It Challenge Fortnite?

For quite some time now, Amazon has been trying to break into the gaming space. Some of those efforts culminated in the company's acquisition of Twitch six years ago, but Amazon also founded Amazon Game Studios way back in 2012 to actually create games. For the first several years, the studio focused on creating mobile games, but with the release of The Grand Tour Game last year, we saw the company branch out to console and PC gaming as well.Crucible, the next game from Amazon Game Studios, has arrived on PC. Crucible is billed as a free-to-play team-based shooter in which players will work together to hunt down opposing players and NPC monsters with the overarching goal of collecting Essence to boost their abilities.

There are 10 hunters to pick from in all, with three game modes to play through. The first game mode is Heart of the Hives, which pits two teams of four against each other in a race to collect three Hearts from Hives that spawn throughout the world.

The second game mode is dubbed Alpha Hunter, which is a last-team-standing mode in which eight teams of two compete. Finally, we have Harvester Command, which is a point control mode where two teams of eight will fight to gain and then keep control of Harvesters to earn points. Killing your opponents will also earn you points, and the first team to 100 points will take the victory.

With this launch, Crucible kicks off an 8 week long pre-season that's meant to give players ample time to learn how to play and discover their favorite hunter. Those who begin playing Crucible by June 2nd will get 1,000 in-game credits for free, which can be used to purchase the pre-season battle pass that costs 950 credits. Like most battle passes, this one will unlock hunter and account customization options as you progress through it, which is primarily done by completing challenges.

If that sounds like your type of game, you can download Crucible today from Steam. If team-based shooters aren't really your thing, then perhaps you're better off waiting for Amazon's incoming MMO New World, which was recently delayed to August 25th, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.