Amazon's free-to-play hero shooter Crucible drops May 20

The hero-shooter genre just got a lot more congested with the addition of Crucible by Amazon Game Studios. And after just one trailer, players can expect to dive right in on May 20 for the PC.

Reportedly in development since 2016 by Relentless, the studios subsidiary dev, Crucible will be Amazon Game Studios' first big-budget title since its inception in 2012.

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The game will be the studio's answer to the likes of others in the genre, including Blizzard's Overwatch, EA's Apex Legends, and, most recently, Riot Games' Valorant.

While at first glance, Crucible looks a lot like the aforementioned games, featuring team-based, high-octane first-person shooter gameplay with a slew of unique characters and abilities.

One main difference is that it will feature PvE (Player vs Environment) content in one of its three main game modes: Heart of the Hives, which pits players against two teams of four against monsters on the battlefield, competing to see who racks up the most kills.

Two other game modes include Alpha Hunters, which is a deathmatch featuring eight teams of two, and Harvester Command, which is a king-of-the-hill style game mode with two teams of eight duking it out.

Another significant difference is that, unlike its competitors, Crucible has the innate advantage of being under Amazon's wing, which means it could take precedence in marketing on Twitch, arguably the biggest streaming platform for many of these titles to gain clout.

Additionally, it might gain some direct Twitch integration as a way of facilitating further use of the streaming platform.

Though no esports plans were detailed yet for Crucible, competitive players can certainly expect to see some tournaments to happen in due time, should the game pick up in popularity and sales.

Crucible is but one of two big-budget games that Amazon Game Studios plans on releasing in 2020. The upcoming MMORPG New World is slated to release in August.

Furthermore, it is also developing a Lord of the Rings MMO game, though not much yet is known about the project.

This article was first published in Geek Culture.