The third-person multiplayer on-line battle enviornment Smite is getting a shiny new standalone sequel: Smite 2 has been formally introduced on the 2024 Smite World Championship. The sequel will retain the identical core gameplay Smite gamers are accustomed to, however the recreation itself is being rebuilt from the bottom up for the following technology. Take a look at the announcement trailer above and our first-look preview video beneath.
In case you’re unfamiliar, Smite is a MOBA like League of Legends or Dota 2 – two groups of 5 gamers battle for management of a three-lane map, every staff rising stronger all through the match till one is ready to destroy their enemy’s base. Not like different MOBAs, although, Smite is performed from a third-person perspective, so that you’re proper within the warmth of battle clashing with highly effective gods, as a substitute of strategizing from a top-down overview. It’s additionally designed to be console-friendly, and simply performed utilizing a controller.
The unique recreation was launched in 2014 and runs on Unreal Engine 3, so Smite 2 – constructed utilizing Unreal Engine 5 – represents a big leap in expertise. Travis Brown, Common Supervisor at Titan Forge Video games, describes Smite 2 as a “likelihood to return, take all of the learnings from 10 years of creating Smite into probably the most profitable multiplayer video games of all time, and do all of it strictly higher.”
Alongside visible upgrades and new animations and results for Smite’s pantheon of playable Gods, Smite 2 can even embrace a number of gameplay enhancements: new skills for sure characters, a model new backend and matchmaking system, new map options, and new UI.
5 new Gods are additionally deliberate for Smite 2, beginning with Hecate, the Greek goddess of sorcery, who shall be accessible to play as a part of the Smite 2 alpha playtest, deliberate for Spring 2024.
Since they’re rebuilding Smite 2 from scratch, the event staff at Titan Forge Video games are additionally taking the chance to make some extra basic changes to the sport, in an effort to introduce extra strategic depth.
In Smite 1, Gods use both Bodily or Magical Energy, and may’t use objects that don’t belong to their energy sort. Smite 2 will remove these restrictions, permitting all Gods to construct all objects, and scaling particular person skills based mostly on new Power and Intelligence stats. Relics are being eliminated completely, and the merchandise retailer shall be restructured to make it simpler for gamers to dynamically adapt their builds throughout a match.
Making a model new model of the sport after 10 years of continuous updates is a big enterprise – there are 130 Gods in Smite 1, and so they gained’t all be accessible to play in Smite 2 immediately, although the builders plan to finally convey each God over to the sequel.
Not all Smite content material goes to make it over to Smite 2, nonetheless. In-game Skins launched earlier than 12 months 11 gained’t carry over, because the staff state it merely isn’t possible to recreate the huge quantity of content material launched over the previous 10 years, though there’s a Legacy system deliberate to replicate the funding veteran Smite gamers have made.
Thankfully, for many who’d want to stay with the unique, Smite 2 gained’t be changing Smite 1. The unique will nonetheless proceed to run as a standalone recreation, and can obtain common updates for the foreseeable future.
Smite 2 shall be launched on PC, Steam Deck, Xbox Sequence X and S, and PlayStation 5 with full crossplay, and signups for the alpha playtest are reside now.