Amazon's F2P Shooter Crucible Launching May 20, Will Include Three PvP Modes

Last month, we got word that the date the release of Crucible, Amazon Game Studios' free-to-play shooter, would fall in May. Today its Steam page revealed the exact date as Wednesday, May 20.

Crucible is described on that page as a "team-based action shooter driven by the choices you make." That's not saying much, but fortunately, the announcement video goes into more detail about its three game modes. Heart of the Hives is a 4v4 match where teams race to collect hearts left behind by "monstrous hive creatures." Alpha Hunters sounds the most like a standard battle royale, where two-player teams compete to be the last pair standing. Then there's Harvester Command, which features two teams of eight competing to control essence harvesters, which sounds like a typical "control point" mode.

Before each match, you'll select upgrades to equip that you'll level up by collecting Essence as the match goes on. The cast of characters looks like a varied lot of humans, aliens, monsters, and a cute little robot. There are 10 hunters total, though there's little information about them on the Crucible website, other than that two of them are the "evil genius Tosca with her acid scattergun or the robot Bugg and his seed pod turrets."

It's a remarkably light amount of information for what is supposed to be a big release from a major studio, and given the reception to the trailer on YouTube -- currently at about 40% negative -- I have to admit to being a little worried about Crucible's prospects. Still, in a little over two weeks, we'll be able to judge it for ourselves, so we'll see if it was worth the years-long wait.