Amazon overhauling its fantasy sports brawler Breakaway

Amazon Game Studios’ competitive sports brawler with a mythological twist, Breakaway, is getting a major overhaul, the studio said today. After a months-long public alpha test, Amazon says its going to take time to “iterate and evolve” Breakaway’s core gameplay.

And it sounds like the Breakaway team intends to go a bit dark while that happens.

“Over the course of the Alpha we received a lot of feedback from you that we’re taking to heart,” the Breakaway team said in a post on the game’s website. “In order to get it right, we’re letting our team take the time to iterate and evolve Breakaway’s core gameplay to deliver what you’ve asked for. We aren’t sure how long this will take, but we think it’s the right thing to do for the game, and you, the community.

“We won’t be hosting Alpha matches during this time, but we still want to hear your ideas for how to improve the game, and we’ll share our ideas for your feedback.”

The Breakaway public alpha ran from June to September. The game had been playable on PC in private alpha tests prior to that, but in June, Amazon made major changes to Breakaway’s gameplay and its playable heroes. The studio shifted away from characters based on historical and legendary figures to more fantasy-based heroes, with an art overhaul to match.

Breakaway was officially announced about a year ago. The game was originally described as a “mythological sport brawler built for fast action, teamwork, and live-streaming” in which players build turrets, traps and shields on a playfield. Players fight to control the Relic — Breakaway’s ball — and use it score on their opponent’s goal.

Breakaway is one of three announced projects in development at Amazon Game Studios. The other two are New World, a massively multiplayer sandbox game, and Crucible, a sci-fi survival game. Amazon announced a new San Diego-based branch of Amazon Game Studios, which is being led by EverQuest co-creator John Smedley, earlier this year.