Amazon's Crucible is reverting back to a closed beta

Amazon’s Crucible, the first big game from Amazon Game Studios, is reverting back to a closed beta after its disappointing launch last May. 

The waning free-to-play MOBA shooter was critically panned at release for mediocre gunplay, poor map design and a litany of other issues.

Following the poor reception, Amazon Game Studios immediately pulled two of the game’s three game modes from the game in order to improve the game’s primary experience.

Crucible developer Relentless announced the modes’ removal as allowing the team, “[Focus] on one mode… to refine the design of core systems without the compromises we needed to make to support three game modes.”

As of 9am today, existing Crucible players will be the only players that will be able to access the game during the game’s new beta period. This move is to allow the development team to “focus on providing the best possible experience for our players”.

No end date for the game’s beta period has been listed, but the game’s developer has said that, “When we exit beta, it will be based on your feedback and the metrics we see in-game.”

When we reviewed Crucible, we said: “There’s a good game inside of Crucible but at the moment, it’s buried. Marred by some baffling gameplay decisions and technical difficulties that patches are slowly ironing out, it’s difficult to recommend in its current state, but it definitely shows promise for the future.”