“It’s the end of a rocky journey…” writes the Verge. After six years of developing the free first-person shooter game Crucible, Amazon launched the game in May, yanked it into closed beta in July, and then 14 weeks later cancelled the game altogether. Ars Technica reports:

This followed the game’s formal delisting from Steam in July, which followed painfully low concurrent player counts (as low as 200) that made it difficult for players to successfully matchmake with each other. Though the game launched with considerable attention, including a promotional blitz on the Amazon-owned game-streaming platform Twitch, it only briefly maintained a player population exceeding 10,000 users.

“…ultimately we didn’t see a healthy, sustainable future ahead [for] Crucible,” explains a blog post from Amazon’s Crucible team. The Verge reports:
The developers will be hosting a “a final playtest and community celebration” in the next few weeks, according to the blog. Once that’s done, matchmaking will be disabled, but you’ll be able to play custom games (which are expected to be available in the coming days) until 3PM ET on November 9th. The company also says that it will be offering a full refund for any purchases you might have made…

Crucible developers will be moved to other Amazon Games titles, including New World, Amazon’s upcoming massively multiplayer online game. That game, which is currently set to launch in spring 2021, has had its own set of challenges, including two delays. And we’re also still waiting on the release of Pac-Man Live Studio, a version of Pac-Man that you can play directly on Twitch. Amazon said in May that the game would launch in June, but it’s still not out, and the game’s website only says that it’s “coming soon.”

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Source:: Slashdot