If you're getting over Overwatch and are no longer palling around with Paladins, you may want to check out the upcoming Crucible from Amazon Game Studios. It's a brand new hero shooter that launches for free as a PC-exclusive on May 20.

Luckily, I've sat down for an (almost three-hour!) chat with the developers, who answered quite a few of my questions about the new release.

Crucible Hands-On: Amazon Game Studios Enters the Hero Shooter Arena

Right off the bat, Crucible differentiates itself from traditional hero shooters by being set in third-person.

It's not the most groundbreaking departure from what is familiar for this subgenre. Still, it at least appears to combine the fast and fluid style of gameplay seen in titles like Fortnite with the tightly-woven, team-based interplay seen in titles like Overwatch.

At launch, Crucible will feature three distinct gameplay modes. They are being described by Amazon Game Studios as follows:

• Heart of the Hives: A 4 vs. 4 battle against giant boss Hives that spawn throughout the world. Each Hive contains a valuable Heart, and the first team to capture three Hearts wins, making each match a dangerous balance between racing the opposing team and surviving the powerful Hives.

• Alpha Hunters: Eight teams of two take the battlefield and fight to be the final team standing.

• Harvester Command: Two eight-person teams battle to capture and hold Harvesters spread across the map, vying for control of the Essence that drew them all to the planet. Teams earn points by controlling Harvesters and defeating opponents, and the first team to 100 points wins.

Amazon released a handful of videos detailing each mode, which you can see over here. 

I got over three hours of hands-on time to look over the shoulders of several different developers in both Heart of the Hives and Harvester Command mode. Here's the crux of what I learned.

Crucible has been in development for five years, and more than one narrative designer is working on the game's story and characters.

There is a wide variety of characters with their own unique dynamics and gameplay styles at launch. Totalling 10 at launch, each has abilities that are important to certain situations. One of the standout characters is Bugg, who shoots seed pods and waters them into plant-based turrets.

Characters each go through the same story-driven tutorial mode but carry their own lines and personalities into matches. Downtime conversations will happen between characters during exploration and other downtime moments, and they are unique to each character pair.

At the start of a match, you can select your upgrades, and you choose your tier one, tier three, and tier five upgrades. Tiers two and four are a built-in part of character progression. You can change your perks before each match, but you can also tailor your upgrades to the opposing heroes on the opposite team while loading into the game. It's not possible to switch characters in Crucible mid-match.

Matches are guaranteed to end within 22 minutes, but generally, end much more quickly. Alpha Hunters and Harvester Command matches are more likely to end within 10 to 15 minutes.

If someone disconnects during the queuing sequence, Crucible has a backfill system that will grab someone else out of the queue, so that seven other people don't have to re-queue. If your partner dies in Alpha Hunters mode, you can fight for the right to pair up with another single player for the duration of the match.

Crucible is on a release schedule and will receive a new season, optimistically, between every eight to 10 weeks. Amazon says that it will always have a new battle pass, and the battle pass will always be stocked with new content.

Crucible is PC-first, but it does have limited controller support already, holding future integration into consoles as a possibility.

That's it for our preview of Crucible. You can download the free hero shooter from Amazon over on Steam starting at 3 p.m. EST/12 p.m. PST on May 20. It will launch as a PC-exclusive first, but it may also see a console launch down the line.

Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more on Amazon's F2P hero shooter, including Crucible guides, in the coming days and weeks!

New info on Amazon's upcoming free-to-play shooter, Crucible, has been revealed in a round of new videos providing insight into the title's various gameplay modes.

We covered some of these modes last week when the game's May 20 release date on PC was originally revealed. The action-packed first-look trailer that accompanied the target date set us up for the reveals below. 

A competitive multiplayer experience developed by Relentless Studios and published by Amazon Game Studios, Crucible will support 10 playable hero characters on launch and three game modes: Heart of Hives, Alpha Hunters, and Harvester Command. 

Each of the game modes is detailed below. 

Heart of Hives

Heart of Hives is described as "a 4 vs. 4 battle against giant boss Hives that spawn throughout the world. Each Hive contains a valuable Heart, and the first team to capture three Hearts wins, making each match a dangerous balance between racing the opposing team and surviving the powerful Hives."

The mode is a PvEvP hybrid mode that seems to reward strategy and tactics, as players determine the best way to harvest the mode's three hive hearts. 

Alpha Hunters

Amazon describes Alpha Hunters as a mode in which "eight teams of two take the battlefield and fight to be the final team standing." It's a last-team standing mode that culminates in a single team getting all of the goods. 

Once players go down, they won't be able to rejoin the action, though "solo hunters" can team up with each other to continue the fight. Make it to the end, and you can choose to turn on your new teammate or share the glory. 

Harvester Command

According to the developers, Harvester Command is where "two eight-person teams battle to capture and hold Harvesters spread across the map, vying for control of the Essence that drew them all to the planet. Teams earn points by controlling Harvesters and defeating opponents, and the first team to 100 points wins."

Essentially, this is capture the flag mode.

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Those interested in playing Crucible as soon as it launches can add the game to their Steam wishlist now.

Crucible will be available on May 20 for PC. We'll be covering the free-to-play hero shooter at launch, so be sure to check back for our impressions, as well as tips and tricks guides next week. 

Today, Amazon has announced that their free-to-play shooter, Crucible, is coming to Steam on May 20.

For those unversed, Crucible is a competitive team-based shooter developed by Relentless Studios. A multiplayer experience with a roster of 10 playable characters at launch, each sporting their own unique abilities and weapons, the game features both human and alien combatants.

The aim is for teams to traverse "a dangerous planet" in the search of Essence, which in turn amplifies players' powers and abilities.

Three game modes will be available at launch:

• Heart of the Hives: Two teams of four battle giant bosses scattered across the map, in the hopes to harvest their hearts. The first to three wins.
• Harvest Commander: Two teams of eight must capture and hold harvesters across the map.
• Alpha Hunters: Eight teams of two fight for survival to be the last team standing.

Christoph Hartmann, vice president at Amazon Games, said in a Crucible press release:

In Crucible, every match is different, and players’ choices really matter. Every opponent, team, and mode poses unique dangers, and no two matches are the same, so players must constantly adapt to everything the world and the other teams throw at them.

We’re excited for players to join the hunt in just a couple of weeks, and we can’t wait to hear what they think of it.

Crucible will join the ranks of other F2P shooters, such as Apex Legends, Planetside 2, and Fortnite, and it is one of many games Amazon has in the works, with a Lord of the Rings MMO currently in development as well. Those interested can wishlist the game now on Steam.

Be sure to check GameSkinny for more Crucible news and information as it comes in!