[Update #2]: Crucible will be closing down its servers on November 9, 2020.

[Update]: Amazon's New World MMO has now been delayed until 2021 for pretty much the same reasons.

Back in May, Amazon released their team-based, free-to-play shooter Crucible onto Steam. Unfortunately, as is the case with way too many games these days, Crucible launched far too early. As a consequence of this, Crucible got slammed with mediocre to bad reviews, and as you might imagine, quickly started losing what little playerbase it gathered from the initial release.

Usually this would mean a slow and painful demise, especially for such a team-based game, but it would appear that the developers are not willing to give up yet. And so, in a move that doesn't exactly happen very often, they have now 'unreleased' Crucible and brought it back into Closed Beta.

"We’ll continue following the roadmap we laid out previously and working on map, combat, and system changes to improve the Heart of the Hives experience as well as implementing other improvements based on your feedback and what we think the game needs in order to thrive," reads the official update. "For the most part, your experience as a Crucible player will stay pretty much the same while we’re in beta."

"One of the biggest changes you’ll see is that we’re going to schedule dedicated time each week when we as devs will be playing with the community and soliciting feedback. The game will be accessible 24/7 so you can continue to self-organize matches with other players—we recommend joining our Discord server to find players to queue against. You’ll still launch Crucible through Steam (you don’t even need a new download), you’ll keep all the progress and customization items you’ve already earned, and the battle pass, reward tracks, and in-game store will continue to be supported."

So while it's nowhere near as drastic as it sounds at first glance, it does at least mean the developers are more than willing to implement drastic changes if they are going to result in a better gameplay experience. It's certainly not going to be an easy process as the scales are tipped against them quite heavily, but here's to hoping all of the effort will eventually pay off!

You can learn more about Crucible's transition to Closed Beta, as well as its future, over at the official website.