Smite 2, a longtime meme in the Smite Ranked Community has been confirmed, and is coming out in alpha testing this weekend. From a veteran player perspective, it’s unclear if this offers many practical benefits. It’s not as if the core game play is changing much. On the other hand, slightly updating rosters between FIFAs, Maddens, and more suggests that there may be a market for slight variations to be profitable.
There are a couple reasons to be optimistic about Smite 2, given that it’s alpha testing begins next weekend. Briefly, and then in more detail. First, this graphics update will make Smite more desirable to newer players. Second, the relative ease of development in Unreal Engine 5 makes it easier to optimize and add things to the game. Third, the move towards a Smite 2 may signal TitanForge’s focus on the Smite community, which can be good.
I’ve been playing Smite since about 2015-2016, and it’s changed a lot over time. Characters have been correspondingly buffed and nerfed depending on their ascendance in the meta. Items like boots have entered and exited the game, alongside relics and other consumable ways of allowing characters to escape. What’s remained most similar is the core gameplay of a MOBA that uses your keyboard and mouse and emphasizes skill shots. When I’ve tried playing games like League, I’ve been frustrated since A. The themes aren’t as cool, B. The game is a lot more able to be snowballed, and C. A lot more auto-hits make the game mechanically less interesting. Over time, as other video games have improved their graphics, and overall UX, Smite’s graphics have been mostly static. This means that over time, it’s been harder to get people started on Smite. When you couple that with a huge amount of items and gods to learn, and its easy to see why the community has gradually diminished over time. Add in a relatively toxic (I know League is worse) lobby system, a small ranked pool, and a tiny professional e-sports scene, and it’s clear why new players are not so common.
I think Smite 2 overall will clearly be good for attracting new players, in large part because of graphics and a decrease in total items/gods. It’s been rumored that Smite 2 will not start with every god. I think this is good because it gives the player base longer to acclimate, and will be easier to balance. When you transition up 2 generations of gaming engines, you can really optimize a lot better. When I worked in technology myself, I noticed that a lot of old code and trying to fix a bug several versions back is very difficult and time consuming. The corresponding graphics improvements I think will be a good way of drawing publicity to the MOBA genre.
A second reason that I think Smite 2 will be great for the player base is total amount of resources needed to improve core features. I’ve missed clans for at least a few seasons. Instead of having to grapple with a super old engine, that energy can be better spent optimizing existing features. If the old engine made it challenging to do X, and the new engine has a more straightforward path to creation, we’re likely to see improvements to game-play and graphics.
A natural consequence of the first and second reason that I think Smite 2 will be good for us is that it’s likely to push towards a virtuous cycle, where more players improves ranked lobbies, and total money spent, allowing upgrades to features, encouraging more people to play the game. One challenge that Smite has faced in the past is that despite being a cash cow for Hi-Rez, the company that owns Smite, is Smite is comparatively starved for resources. Hi-Rez, aiming to increase market share, cross-subsidized games like Paladins and Tribes ascend, rather than focusing on Smite. Because Smite 2 is new and shiny, and potentially very lucrative, the focus on it I think will infuse the resources necessary to see some cool stuff in the future.
Here are a few things I want to see from Smite 2, which I doubt I will. First, a good two-player mode would be very fun to see. Two player joust is loads of fun, but the old map may not be ideal. Most of the time, I try to play with one friend, and there’s not a good solution aside from getting a complete random. Second, I would like to see a smaller teams mode where maybe it’s 2 V 2 V 2 or 3 V 3 V 3 where we can have more alliances and strategic maneuvering to win, perhaps something like a capture the flag. Having a new engine would make it easier to reach these goals.
A common complaint that I expect to hear is that a lot of skins won’t move over. I know many people, particularly MOBA whales, have spent lots of money on the game, (I’ve only paid for the god pack on my smurf account…) and are understandably frustrated that they won’t have the skins in the new experience. I think Hi-Rez’s compromise is mostly fair, of providing some benefits to old-heads while limiting resources aimed merely at vanity.
Overall, I’m super excited to see Smite 2 come out, and let me know in the comments what you think.
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