I have to give a lot of credit to SMITE 2 and by extension the original SMITE for actually interesting me in the MOBA genre. I never really got into the scene due in large part to an exchange I had with a friend when League of Legends was exploding in popularity. He said to me that I should play it, but just to be ready to be yelled at constantly for not being good. I decided not to play it.
But I actually quite enjoyed SMITE the handful of times I dipped into it. Its tactical style of gameplay combined with a more action-focused camera made it feel a lot smoother and more approachable to get into, and I found myself having a lot more fun than the few times I actually did try to play League of Legends. CGM was fortunate to sit down with Hi-Rez Studios to get some pretty big news about SMITE 2, and it was really impressive to see.
We got to speak with Design Director AJ Walker and Advanced Game Designer Daniel Cooper, who had some big announcements for SMITE 2. Most notably, despite being in Early Access, the game has been a priced game—starting at around $40 CAD for the Founder’s Edition. However, as of today, SMITE 2 will be going Free-to-Play! This is a pretty exciting shift for newcomers who want to experience the game, but may have been put off by the asking price—particularly in contrast to other popular MOBAs.
But that doesn’t mean anyone who purchased SMITE 2 will be left in the lurch, as Walker explained, “It is always our goal to make sure our microtransactions are really clear and well understood and not predatory in any sense.” Early adopters will have access to every one of the 45 available gods, while newcomers will have access to the rotating pool of weekly gods. He went on to explain that anyone who purchased the Founder’s Pack, or even spent a lot on content in SMITE 1 will be rewarded with “Legacy Gems,” which will give players a “large amount of purchasing power in SMITE 2 just based on if they spent money in SMITE 1.”
However, one of my worries was how many games, when making the shift for F2P often resort to predatory microtransactions and Walker wanted to assure players that won’t be the case with SMITE 2 saying, “In SMITE 1, we had a chest system that was actually very positive. People really liked our chest system as a cheaper way to obtain the same content as you could get in other places.” He continued, “And all chests were very transparent about what was in them. There were no duplicates ever. Everything had the same drop chance, so there’s no waiting for the new skin to be, you know, really, really rare; none of that.”
Walker really stressed that putting the player experience first and foremost was the most important thing to the team at Hi-Rez Studios, and it really shows in the amount of player feedback they’ve been receptive to, and how much fine-tuning they’ve been implementing into SMITE 2. But probably the most exciting thing coming to the F2P release is the massive update which includes favourites back from SMITE 1: Geb, Uler, Agni, and Mulan; and one brand-new god: Aladdin.
Cooper gave us a little insight into how Aladdin will play, describing him as a magical assassin and a jungler, adding, “The high-level gameplay notes for him is, we had to get three wishes in there where he got to have these cool gameplay impacting effects.” These effects, which can be used once per game, include an instant resurrect, bonus gold to purchase upgrades or an instant reset of abilities cooldowns. On top of this, similar to Ravenswatch all of Aladdin will also be joined by the Genie of the Lamp, giving all his abilities tag-teams with the Genie.
In addition to this, Aladdin will be one of the characters to utilize the new wall-running movement tech, as well as being able to trap players within the lamp for dedicated 1v1 combat. But there’s a catch to this—the Lamp stays on the battlefield allowing players to jump in an assist. “ It just gives them a lot of unique applications in splitting up team fights,” Cooper says, adding, “It changes the dynamic of team fights, and kind of being showboaty, where you pick that one target because you think that you’re going to win that fight.”
Even more, Geb, Uler, Agni, and Mulan will all feature new tweaks to better refine them and add new features to their play styles. This will come alongside the Joust and Duel, and then Assault game modes from SMITE 1, and a whole host of new Masteries for gods to completely change their play style.
SMITE 2 has very clearly been a labour of love from the Hi-Rez team, and it really shows. Even as they make the jump to F2P, their dedication to fine-tuning the experience and providing something unlike any other kind of MOBA on the market is really incredible. Given the team’s community support and their backing of the eSports community, it looks like the gods are smiling on SMITE 2.
