Relentless Studios, who are part of Amazon Games, present a free online multiplayer shooter called Crucible, available on PC.
Crucible is a new competitive and multiplayer online shooter that will become available for free starting this May 20 on PC (Steam). It is one of the proposals of Amazon Games for this year 2020 together with "New World", an MMO whose launch aims at this summer. We have already been able to play Crucible in an online event accompanied by various developers from Relentless Studios to bring you our first impressions before the title becomes available in open.
A studio made up of great talents, with many ideas and promises
Relentless Studios is a company that is part of Amazon Games and is made up of developers who previously worked in big companies like Microsoft, EA and Arena.net. This time they meet to create a new title that we started to hear about earlier this May 2020: Crucible. Those responsible for the development of the game assure us that they have been working on it for more than 4 years, so the version that comes to us has been built over a long time.
In these years they have looked at other successful works such as Rainbow Six Siege or Warframe and have them as examples to follow due to the evolution they have had and the way they have grown with updates and improvements as the years have passed. months. To achieve their goals with Crucible, they have designed a system of seasons and a battle pass that we detail later in this same piece, in addition to having the feedback and support of various players, cosplayers and other users in order to start create a strong community from before the official launch of the title.
This is one of the key pillars in this type of proposal, in addition to presenting an attractive gameplay and a visual design that enters the eyes with just a glance. After playing the title for a few hours, we believe Crucible is well on its way to becoming a successful title among competitive online team shooter games.
Choose from 10 hunters and find the one that best suits your style
As in other titles of the same genre, such as Overwatch to cite an example, in Crucible we will find a wide range with various characters (called hunters) to choose from. At launch we will have 10 available, a number that will be expanded as the months go by and the development team releases more updates, new seasons arrive and more.
In this selection of characters we find aliens as well as humans and robots. A curiosity about the latter is that its "voice actress" is Amazon Polly, the artificial intelligence that allows us to transform text into speech. After trying different human actors, from Relentless Studios they decided on that voice that best hit the robot, something that extends to the other characters, in which fidelity to different ethnic groups, genres and others stands out in a commitment to diversity that from the company in charge they have made sure to remark. Another important detail is that Crucible arrives fully translated into Spanish, with voices included.
Beyond its various aspects, in the playable each of these hunters has special and mechanical skills to face the others that we can improve and change as we level up with that particular character. For example, in the case of Tosca (a fox-like alien), her abilities focus on rapid mobility and surprising enemies with various traps, while Summer (a muscular human woman carrying a flamethrower) focuses Using fire and leveling up improves the damage done by your weapons and reduces the cooldown time to use the skills.
This level up occurs independently in all games by collecting "essence", a very important element in Crucible that we can find in chests, collect from fallen enemies and others. It could be considered as a kind of experience points that are automatically exchanged as each game progresses.
Due to the great differences that exist between each character and what it costs to dominate each one of them, the most advisable thing is to spend some time playing with each of them in the practice room to learn how to handle them and find out which one we feel more comfortable at the controls. Of course, do not expect a great revolution in any of these characters, since most follow patterns that we have seen previously in other shooters with "heroes" of these characteristics.
3 different and different game modes between them
Crucible has three main game modes, at least launch: Trio of Hearts, Alpha Hunters, and Combine Mastery. The first of them proposes a two-team mode of 4 players in which both must face each other to be the first to collect three hearts dropped by the Colmeneras, lethal aberrations that appear at different points on the battlefield. The map is sized just enough so that we can meet the other team on different occasions, something that causes a feeling of constant tension as we do not know exactly where the attack of the opponents will come from. Still, we felt that the duration of each game (about 20 minutes) detracted from some dynamism in this mode, which could be much more agile.
As for Alpha Hunters, it is the most complicated and closest to the battle royale genre because it will make us face 8 teams of 2 players. This is not a very large number, but even so when we die we will no longer be able to resurrect, so it is an intense way in which we will have to put all our skills into practice to avoid dying at the hands of any other enemy team. To master this mode, we recommend having taken some practice before with the others and controlling the character you have well, otherwise it will be very difficult to win and they will sweep us out of the game in a few minutes.
Finally, Combine Mastery is somewhat more relaxed and extensive, pitting two teams of eight players in a mode based on mastering even these combines. When we claim them for our group, an essence point counter will start to count and we will have to be the first to complete the score to win the victory. Of course, it is advisable to steal the capture machines from the enemy team in order to stop them from obtaining points and tip the balance in our favor. Basically, this is the typical game mode of capturing checkpoints and keeping them that we have already played in other titles.
Daily quests for rewards and Battle Pass available
Without hiding, at Relentless Studios they claim to have been inspired by other proposals of the same genre to make the battle pass and season system with which Crucible will arrive. To begin with, we have a series of daily missions such as "wound enemy hunters (4000 damage points)", "capture 4 harvesters" or simply "play 3 games" in any mode. Upon completing them, they will grant us a certain number of golden jewels that will accumulate until they allow us to level up or Tier. Every time we do it we will get a unique reward in the form of skins, gestures, audio files, etc. to expand our personal collection.
As for the battle pass itself, it will give us a series of exclusive rewards, mainly focused on the cosmetic field, which we will not be able to achieve by playing in a conventional way. In addition, each season will have its own novelties such as the arrival of new characters and even additional game modes or challenges that are not available at the moment. Because there are two months left to advance to Season 1 (the title will kick off with a “Pre-season” on May 20), from the development studio they still did not want to share additional data about what is to come.
Even so, we remember that Crucible can be played for free and without the need to go through the box, so it is recommended to do it to check if we want to take the step and acquire the season pass or if, on the contrary, we prefer to advance little by little every day with daily missions. Until the game has been open for a few months and we can see how it progresses in each season and all the new content that is added, we cannot make an exhaustive Reviews of the quality of its battle pass.
Breakthrough Conclusions: A promising title with a lot of competition
At the controls, Crucible feels quite satisfactory and, despite having some technical errors and connection problems typical of the beta phase in which it is found, it is a work that comes with a fairly solid form. With this we mean that having not one but three different game modes will be launched with a diverse playable proposal that will allow newcomer players to discover the 10 available hunters to see which one best suits their style of play and preferences. personal.
Although Crucible does not innovate too much in any of its sections, it has its own style when it comes to graphics, and has the potential to grow and become a successful title in the genre. Being free opens an accessible entry window so that all players who have a PC (with somewhat elevated characteristics, yes) and a Steam account can try it and form their own opinion.
Crucible gets to compete in an environment where there are many other titles of a similar style, but just as Overwatch or Warframe did (to name a few examples) at the time, the proposal of Relentless Studios and Amazon Games could also find its own gap if it maintains the quality seen in the test and they continue to grow and adjust everything that has room for improvement.
