Actually, Amazon’s hero shooter Crucible was supposed to take off in 2020, but the experiment ended before it could really get started. Former employee Stephen Dewhurst now provides interesting insights into how the process went from his perspective.
This is the game in question: Crucible was released by Amazon in May 2020, but the game promptly failed on Steam. The launch was accompanied by much criticism and players dwindled, which led Amazon to even revert the game back to beta.
However, Crucible never returned from this status of “un-release.” In autumn 2020, the end of the game was announced. Some of the developers were then transferred to another big Amazon project from that time: New World.
For the Amazon Gaming division, this was a significant setback at the time. One that, according to former employee Stephen Dewhurst, could have been foreseen.
Former Developer Talks About Crucible Development Issues
Stephen Dewhurst explains to the portal NME that he was on board as a developer at Amazon and worked on Crucible. However, the process was difficult at that time: “In hindsight, it’s quite obvious, and frankly it was quite obvious at the time as well, that [Crucible] would fail and Amazon is not a good place to develop games,” said Dewhurst (via NME).
Several problems made development difficult. Among other things, Dewhurst criticizes arrogance among executives, who, in his view, wanted to transfer successes from other areas to the gaming division, which were completely dissimilar.
Additionally, while they hired many top talents, they restricted their personal growth: “I was a lead system designer in a 100-person team, and it was 100 percent forbidden for anyone to work on any other project,” explains Dewhurst: “During my seven years there, I was forbidden to learn anything about art, technology, or production, or to work in a smaller or larger team or in another role. There are all these experiences that make you a better game developer, and Amazon simply says no.” Amazon actually follows a philosophy that you should improve at their company, according to Dewhurst.
“We recruited a number of top people, the Crucible team had a wonderful culture – all of that was great, but the policy of working outside the company is very stifling because most of the people you would consider the best by that standard are people who are constantly trying to grow, constantly trying to get better.”
At the same time, Dewhurst emphasizes that his time there was not wasted. He can’t really be upset about that phase: He learned a lot, met many people, and worked on a product that he believes could have been “amazing”: “Besides, Amazon pays very well – […] it was a good way for me to spend seven years of my life.”
Looking at other, more successful projects like New World, Dewhurst says: “Maybe they’re growing out of it now.”
Dewhurst’s statements also somewhat align with an interview from Amazon’s Christopher Hartmann in September 2021. At that time, the Amazon Games Vice President said that they wanted to learn from the mistakes of Crucible – which includes premature releases, why New World was postponed multiple times.
Additionally, the Amazon Game Studios are currently also busy with another project – Lost Ark, which just released a few weeks ago and for which the company acts as publisher. How the MMORPG is doing around a month after launch, you can find out here.
