Crucible Goes Live Today, Will Offer Season Pass And "Rotating Inventory" Of Items In Cash Shop

The servers for Amazon Game Studios and Relentless Studios' Crucible are now live, but you can only access them if you've secured a key for a three-hour early access window. If not, you'll have to wait until noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern to have the chance to try out the free-to-play shooter, which has been getting quite the marketing push the past two weeks -- some of which has been well-received, some not so much.

The company, at least, seems cognizant of the likelihood that it will make mistakes and is willing to learn from them. In an interview with PCGamesN, project lead Colin Johanson said that "When we screw up – and we will, everyone does – we’re honest and forthright about what happened and what we learned." Johanson's probably talking about gameplay, but it's nice to see the marketing team has also adapted over the past couple of weeks. Now, if they'd only improve the description at the top of the game's Steam page ...

Also, in case you missed it -- I know I have -- Johanson offered some insight into the game's monetization, which will consist of a season pass as well as "a rotating inventory of items" you can purchase directly from the cash shop. Naturally, he states that the game will not have any pay-to-win. The cash shop currency will be called Credits, and if you log in by June 2, you can get 1,000 of them for free. Another interesting tidbit: After consulting with fans from all walks of life, Johanson said that the team "tossed out the entirety of our original monetisation plans." I'd be very curious to know what those were.

In any case, you can check out Crucible right now -- either yourself or via your favorite streamer -- so give it a look and let us know what you think!