SUB-PRIME

Not even CRUCIBLE’s adorable botanist robot can redeem its boring gameplay and poor frame rate.

- Morgan Park

Checking all of the boxes needed to fit into the service game climate Crucible has: a roster of heroes with diverse abilities, cosmetics, a battle pass with dozens of progression levels, and snippets of lore that suggest a larger world. Unfortunately, it wraps these familiar elements around a competitive third person shooter that isn’t very good. Even for a free-to-play game, I can’t find a reason to stick with its boring combat and spotty performance.

So much of Crucible feels like a misguided effort, starting with its game modes. Heart of the Hive is a 4v4 race to farm Essence (experience points) and be the first to collect three hive hearts. Efficient farming is the best way to outlevel opponents and get an edge in fights, but it’s so boring that I can’t blame most of my teammates for screwing around instead of aiming for the objective.

I had a bit more fun in