Crucible Highlights Its Three Game Modes: Heart Of The Hives, Alpha Hunters, And Harvester Command

When you announce a launch date for your game just two weeks out, having done virtually zero PR for it, you need to churn out the info in a hurry. That seems to be the plan for Amazon Game Studios and Relentless Studios, who are popping out Crucible videos in rapid-fire mode, following up yesterday's hunter reveals with a trio of videos introducing players to the game's three modes.

Heart of the Hives pits two teams of four against not only each other but the planet itself. The objective is to take down the hives, which are "big, nasty things" that have the appearance of boss battles and leave their hearts behind when they're eliminated. The first team to capture three hearts wins the round.

Alpha Hunters is Crucible's most traditional battle royale mode. Eight teams of two vie to be the last one standing. There are no respawns, but if your partner is taken down, you can team up with another solo hunter and work together. That lasts until there are just three hunters remaining, after which those temporary alliances are dissolved and it's every man, woman, or otherwise for themselves.

Finally, there's Harvester Command, an 8v8 mode that resembles other games' control-point modes. Your objective is to control the essence harvesters on the planet. When you do, your score ticks up -- faster if you control more harvesters -- and the first team to 100 wins the game.

Personally, I think Heart of the Hives looks like the most interesting, though I give at least some props to Alpha Hunters for its impromptu team-up mechanic. Both are reminiscent of The Cycle, a game I've enjoyed and that I've seen other people make comparisons to. Harvester Command seems to be the most ordinary of the three, but I suppose it makes sense for Amazon to include such a mode, to draw in players who aren't looking for fancy bells and whistles.

At the very least, I'm feeling a little more positively inclined toward Crucible than I was last week at this time, when we had little more than a name and a few images to go on. The only things missing that I still really want to learn about are progression and the cash shop. The way things are going, I'd wager we'll hear about by the end of this week, if not tomorrow.