Things were shakey from the start, of course. Crucible’s launch was a bit of a mess, lacking basic features like voice chat or a mini-map for the game’s sprawling maps. Things were looking grim one month later, with Relentless dropping two of the game’s three modes and delaying its first ranked season indefinitely.
Fairly sound, then, that Crucible would retreat back into closed beta - the idea being that the devs would take revised look at the game, plan substantial reworks, and try this whole release thing again sometime later. In the Crucible team’s Final Developer Update, however, the devs admit that the game won’t be making a surprise comeback. I’m not sure how many people will miss Crucible. Our Matt Cox (RPS in peace) reckoned it was an “interesting failure” at best in his Crucible review, one that suffered from trying to pull off too many things at once with shooting that felt absolutely rubbish. “In reality, I’d rather play any of the many games that grapple with just one of Crucible’s heads, and pulls it off far better.” Crucible will be getting one final playtest and community celebration sometime in the next few weeks. After that, the matchmaking servers will shut down for good, with support for custom games ending on November 9. All players are being offered full refunds for any purchases made.
