Amazon confirms it will shut down its flagship shooter Crucible, months after release

Amazon’s flagship team shooter Crucible has officially ceased development, just five months after launch.

The move, announced on the game’s official website, follows a slow start for the free-to-play game, which has typically struggled to attract more than double-figure viewers on streaming platform Twitch – which its parent company owns.

According to Steam Spy, Crucible had a peak concurrent player count of less than 100 on Friday.

Crucible is the Twitch owner’s first big stride into game software, as part of what is said to be an investment of “hundreds of millions of dollars” into game creation.

In its “final” website update, Crucible’s developer said it would offer a full refund for any purchases made and transition its development team to focus on New World, the MMO now scheduled to release early next year.

Crucible’s servers will stay up for custom games until noon PST on Monday, November 9.

“We very much appreciate the way that our fans have rallied around our efforts, and we’ve loved seeing your responses to the changes we’ve made over the last few months, but ultimately we didn’t see a healthy, sustainable future ahead of Crucible,” Amazon Games said in a statement.

“In the next few weeks we’ll be hosting a final playtest and community celebration, both in-game and in our official Discord. After that point we’ll be disabling matchmaking, although you’ll still be able to play Crucible through the custom games feature.

It added: “Thank you, as always, for being part of our community. This has been a labor of love, and we’re grateful for the time we got to spend on planet Crucible with you.”

Earlier this month Amazon officially announced its cloud gaming service, Luna. When it launches, Luna will offer a library of games behind a subscription service, plus Twitch integration and support for a special Amazon game controller.