[2020] Custom Games & Server Availability

With today’s release—the final update for Crucible—we’ve added the ability for players to create their own private matches and spectate them.

The regular matchmaking queue will remain active through our final playtest tomorrow (Friday, October 16). The playtest will run from 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m Pacific. To help send Crucible off in high fashion, we’ve unlocked all skins, voice lines, emotes, etc. for all players. When our Friday playtest is over, we’ll be switching off the regular queue, and matches will be available only through custom games. This will remain the case through noon Pacific Time on November 9, when we’ll be taking servers down and removing Crucible from Steam.

Release notes: Custom Games Players can now create their own private Crucible matches to play with friends, scrimmage against other teams, or arrange private tournaments. When selecting a game mode, players can now select ‘Custom Game’ to host a 4v4 match of Heart of the Hives.

• A full 4v4 match (8 players) is required to start the game.
  
• The leader can move players between teams and into the spectator role. They also have the ability to start the match.
  
• The leader can set the lobby to either ‘invite only’ or ‘friends only’.
  
• Custom games allow up to 4 additional players to join as spectators who can watch a match from the over the shoulder perspective of any alive player.
  
• Spectators can use hotkeys 1-8 to quickly swap perspective between players.

Every entitlement (character skins, emotes, decals, etc.) has been unlocked for all players.