My first experience with the new Crucible hasn’t been great, to be honest. I’m quite disappointed with the update. I’m sure we’ll see fixes, changes, and additions very soon.
Pros:
- There’s a welcome additional variety of rooms and reworks of the already known ones. Plus, many have variants with different aesthetics or types of traps or enemies.
- New enemies.
- It doesn’t require materials to start a run.
- It’s not original or revolutionary (as Thomas Mahler, the CEO, believes every element he implements in the game is), but the buff system adds an interesting layer. Although, so far, I haven’t seen attractive synergies or combos, and it all feels quite flat and uninspired.
- The design of the NPC vendor is very striking. And his options, although gated behind intense grinding (more on that below), are interesting.
Cons:
- What have they done with the camera? I’ve lost count of how many times the camera decides to focus on my character, making it really difficult to see which enemies are surrounding me. There are too many times when you have to access certain areas of the room blindly, without seeing well what or how many enemies await you because the camera doesn’t work even half as well as in the original game.
- It lacks a lot of polish. I play with the freezing magic staff, and the bug where enemies start to skate and slide exaggeratedly once frozen is constant.
- THE DAMN FALLS INTO THE VOID. I’ve died four times falling into the void due to enemy pushes or confusing cameras. That death is instant, and you don’t respawn with less life, which makes no sense. But, to top it off, one of the buffs allows you to revive at 25% health “if an enemy kills you.” Even with it, falling into the void means the end of the run. They are absurd, frustrating, and I don’t understand why there are so many rooms that include fatal falls.
- You don’t get any loot in the rooms. I haven’t been able to defeat the boss, but I doubt doing so compensates for even a quarter of what was obtained in the original Crucible. And not just in terms of gear, but also for the constantly used food or other resources.
- Buffs from various foods have been removed. Those that give you extra health no longer work.
- The mid-run NPC requires intense grinding of a new material to unlock any additional options, from upgrading weapons to selling us items, redistributing character points, or repairing equipment. Just like with the city-building elements, they again rely on mindless grinding for options that, for the most part, should come by default.