Based out of Seattle, Crucible developer Relentless Studios is headed up by Louis Castle - co-founder of Westwood Studios, who are best-known for the Command and Conquer series. The studio also comprises veterans from ArenaNet, EA, Westwood, Microsoft and other major industry players.
Their debut release is a free-to-play competitive team-based shooter, and revolves around the planet Crucible. It’s a dangerous place full of a resource called Essence, which enhances players - known as Hunters - as they gather it. This plot device forms the basis of why you’re all doing battle. Think Avatar or Dune.
Diving into the game, the first thing that strikes you about Crucible, unlike Overwatch, Apex Legends or even Valorant, is that gameplay is entirely in third-person. Starting with this decision, it’s clear that Relentless aren’t looking to compete directly with the other titles in the hero shooter genre, but instead create something different that appeals to a broader audience.
This decision is found everywhere in the game. While it does borrow elements from the genre, it feels like a radically different take. From the Hunters themselves, to the game modes, and the map itself, the familiarity for those already deep into hero shooters ends there. Crucible feels fresh, and here’s why.
The Hunters
At launch, there will be ten Hunters on offer for players to get hold of, each with their own distinct look and playstyle. From the hulking Earl to the sprightly robot Bugg, marine archetype Mendoza to the wrecking ball that is Summer, all feel significantly different enough to warrant trying them out at least once. Not all Hunters are shooters, either - Drakal, for example, is almost entirely melee-based.
Each Hunter comes with three different abilities, which have cooldowns, and a movement-speed option bound to Left-Shift. This can be a rocket slide that propels you forward uncontrollably like with Earl, allowing you to cover great distances quickly, or an unlimited sprint boost as with Mendoza.
Where Crucible differs from other titles here is that there are no roles to speak of. You won’t find a forced Tank-Healer-DPS format like in Overwatch, and while certain Hunters will undoubtedly feel stronger than others or find themselves at the head of a meta when it comes to pass, ultimately your choice comes down to finding the Hunter that fits your playstyle.
This is compounded by the real originality in Crucible’s Hunter design is a progression system more commonly found in MOBA titles such as League of Legends. As matches progress and your team collects Essence, your Hunters level up, adding HP and damage, and ramping up abilities according to these upgrades you selected before the match.
In fact, I’d say this system is more akin to something like Diablo, in that the choices you make in the tree directly modify your abilities.
An example of this is Bugg, the robotic botanist who serves more as a support-type character than an out-and-out damage dealer with a water cannon as a primary weapon. Similar to Zyra in League of Legends, Bugg lays seeds that can turn into plants that help zone enemies and deal massive damage should they come close.
However, he normally needs to ‘water’ the seeds to turn them into those plants. One of his options in the skill tree has the seeds auto-spawn into plants, removing a resource-management necessity and allowing you to focus on other parts of the battle.
Mendoza operates more as an all-round Hunter. One of his abilities calls down a bunker than players can hide behind in the heat of battle, and which can be upgraded through the skill tree to come with an automated turret. While all Hunters can collect and store Health Packs (generally three), Mendoza has a unique ability that allows him to give these to allies.
Getting the best out of the skill tree is a crucial component of the teamplay aspect of Crucible, meaning that competing for resources is a necessity. It’s not all just about killing the opponent, as the game modes prove.
As a footnote to Hunters, what I loved in particular about Crucible is that each Hunter has depth. Unlockable nuggets of speech offer a great amount of lore, while the designs are top-notch. Hunters are easy to align with based on your personality, and I found myself particularly drawn to the hulking Earl. Speaking to writer Sam Vick during the test, we learned that he's a family man and space trucker whose ship went down, so he removed the machine gun and now carries it into battle. There's a softness about him that belies his size, and it's this kind of detail that makes me want to learn more.
The Game Modes
There are three game modes in Crucible at launch: Heart of the Hives, Harvester Command, and Alpha Hunters.
Heart of the Hives
Heart of the Hives is perhaps the best experience of Crucible, and the one most likely to be the ‘esport-focused’ mode when it comes to that. In it, two teams of four battle to collect Hearts, with the first team to collect three emerging victorious.
The real uniqueness to this mode is that it’s essentially a PvPvE mode. The hearts come from massive AI enemies named Hives. These spawn periodically, with all players aware of just when and where that is going to happen. This leads to a battle for territory between the teams, with control of the area crucial to gaining the advantage.
As teams are waiting for the Hive to spawn, teams will roam the map, capturing Harvesters (large, static structures) and taking down neutral camps to collect Essence. A level advantage will help greatly in the battle to come, as will unlocking those abilities you’ve chosen in your tree.
Once the Hive spawns, players will need to take it down - and it won’t go without a fight. As you can imagine, this can get manic when also faced with an enemy team trying to stop you. Once you have captured (or lost) a Heart, the cycle of spawn cooldown and area control begins all over again, until one team has earned three Hearts and the victory.
It’s as much a battleground such as Warsong Gulch in World of Warcraft as it is a team-based shooter in the traditional sense, and it proves to be tons of fun.
Harvester Command
This mode is a more classic staple of shooters, and a form of Capture the Flag. Harvesters are giant towers that grant Essence, and the mode is an all-out battle for control of the territory. It’s a mode that is much more arcadey than try-hard, and is sure to appeal to high-level and casual players alike.
Games are 8v8, and the more Harvesters you have, the more your score increases. The first team to 100 points wins. There are enough objectives across the map that you’ll need to constantly monitor where your strength lies, and where your enemies are. Coordination and communication will be key, as the map - complete with all the usual neutral camps to get in your way - will not be kind.
Alpha Hunters
The Alpha Hunters mode is much different to the usual team-based shooter modes. In fact, it’s the closest thing Crucible has to a Battle Royale.
What’s different is that this is a sixteen-player duos tournament, but with a twist. The fascinatingly unique aspect here is that should your partner fall, you’re not necessarily left to go it alone. If you come across another singleton, you can propose linking up to form another duo. This partnership can be broken manually at any time with a button press, or will be annulled automatically once three players are left standing.
The usual resource control applies here. In fact, it could be even more important as levels are a huge advantage in 1v1 or 2v2 combat. While this mode follows the usual ‘decreasing circle’ format as most battle royale titles, there’s one feature that forces endgame skirmishes that can’t be found in other games of the genre.
Once down to the last few players, an Essence Terminal will appear. This will periodically spawn enough Essence for a player to gain an entire level instantly - meaning whoever controls this machine could ramp up exponentially for a potentially unkillable position. However, each Hunter has their counters, meaning this mode rewards knowledge of kits and styles much more than the other modes.
It’s a try-hard’s paradise, and is sure to bring us some fantastic Twitch clips down the road.
Thoughts
The planet of Crucible is harsh and unforgiving, a rocky terrain pock-marked with advanced technology that appears similar to the map found in Apex Legends or Destiny in its aesthetic. There’s a lot of verticality here, and always somewhere for players to take cover and surprise their opponents.
It’s a map that feels both expansive and claustrophobic at the same time, meaning you’ll always need to be on the lookout for enemies around the corner.
Gameplay is fast and frenetic most of the time, meaning those who like to play cautiously (like myself) will need to play smart - in fact, that’s one thing that struck me most about Crucible. It’s a game that will challenge you at all times, and the addition of PvE elements means there’s never any downtime between phases. For those who enjoy the thrill of the battle, you won’t be disappointed.
Matchmaking promises to be robust, with Relentless saying that the separation of different ability levels will not be an issue. There’s a lot of depth to Crucible, and even with there only being ten Hunters to begin with you’ll find yourself tinkering for days trying to come up with optimal builds and strategies for each skirmish.
All three game modes are fun to play, even for those who aren’t necessarily shooter-specialists (like myself). It’s a game that is easy to grasp in its modes and how they play out, but incredibly nuanced when it comes to reaching peak performance. This is something that is reflected in the fact that it's optimised for both keyboard and mouse and controller, meaning players can learn to play their own way to reach that top level. This borrows heavily from Call of Duty, a game played just as much on a gamepad as it is on KB&M.
I do feel it’s a game that will lend itself well to being a spectator sport too, as the constant need to control resources is something that even the most casual esports fan can grasp - think Dragon control in League of Legends, or bomb-site control in CS:GO.
Relentless are planning a season-based content model - the first eight weeks after release will be Preseason, followed by seasons of eight weeks that could introduce a new Hunter, a new mode, or a new feature each time. One thing the studio has said is that this will ultimately be determined by the community, with their feedback being crucial to the future of the game.
When it comes to microtransactions, Crucible follows the cosmetic-only model that several games have shifted to recently. In-game currency can be bought for real money, and which can then be traded for skins of differing rarities. The best skins come with complete visual changes, instead of just recolours, some of which are very impressive indeed.
Ranked modes will also follow as soon as possible, as Relentless understands this is of paramount importance to the community. One thing I did notice from a technical standpoint here is that there was almost no noticeable lag or frame drops, while playing on a relatively modest PC. The game is set up for competition, and this is something that bodes well for any ranked future.
Overall, I had a blast with Crucible, playing four different Hunters over the course of the alpha test. While that was not enough to get to grips with the nuances of each Hunter, nor even come close to mastery, I never felt like I was useless to my team, even if my KDA stats were worse off than those of my teammates.
Crucible offers enough by way of strategy and communication that it was a highly enjoyable experience without needing to be the best on the map, and that should encourage those players outside the ‘top 1%’. While this is a game built to feed the competitive nature of players, it’s one that should appeal to all - just like another high-profile third-person shooter.
It feels like a very solid debut offering from Relentless, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the coming months. Should it pick up a dedicated playerbase, the sky is the limit for this unique offering that draws the best of many of the different shooter subgenres out there.
Crucible comes to Steam tomorrow, May 20, 2020.
Crucible is a new competitive team-based shooter for PC, developed by Relentless Studios and published by Amazon Games. Completely free-to-play, it will launch on May 20, 2020 with three game modes and ten distinct hunters to play.
All images courtesy of Amazon Game Studios.
