Everything We Know About SMITE 2
The announcement of SMITE 2 came as a massive shock to everyone. With no previous or prior hints to the upcoming sequel for the highly successful MOBA SMITE (now called SMITE 1 on Hi-Rez sites), Hi-Rez and Titan Forge Games unveiled the sequel and became one of the first surprises in the industry in 2024. But with such an impromptu announcement came a lot of questions — we hope to cover most of those in this article to ease your worries. Starting with what everyone's thinking about…
What About My SMITE Content?
Already in Season 11, SMITE is a highly successful MOBA that has been around for a long time, and with this time, devoted players have had the opportunity to spend thousands of pounds in the in-game shop to acquire Gems and purchase God skins. With the surprise announcement of a sequel, a lot of people are wondering what's going to happen to their years of loyalty to the first title.
The simple answer is that there will be rewards for everyone who has spent a lot of hours on the first game. While many have been wondering if SMITE skins will transfer to SMITE 2, the answer is a bit more complex than yes or no — original skins themselves won't be making a leap into the game's sequel. Everything you bought will remain in SMITE, but to compensate everyone, you'll be able to get Legacy Gems equal to every Gem you acquired in SMITE (meaning that even if you got free Gems, you can still redeem them in the sequel).
What Are Legacy Gems?
They are the items that you'll get for the amount that you got. If you received 8,000 Gems in your lifetime on SMITE (a number that is likely too small for many), you'll receive 8,000 Legacy Gems. Though these won't let you purchase items in the sequel, you can still utilise them to pay up to half of any item that you want (skins, chests, battle passes), while the other half will have to be with the new in-game premium currency.
This system will apply until you've run out of Legacy Gems, after which point, you'll have to pay the full price for every item. So you won't be getting items for free with these, but it'll give you a discount for as long as you have them to spend.
What About Achievements, Ranked Progression, and More?
If you are in it for your legacy, then SMITE 2 has that covered, too — for every year that you played SMITE, you'll receive points that will allow you to unlock various rewards across both games. This is called the Divine Legacy system, where you'll be able to get points depending on how many gods you've mastered, the ranked matches you've lost, the skins that you've unlocked, and the match hours that you've played. Tallied together, this will give you a level.
With this level, you'll earn a lot of stuff to show off. First, you can unlock a choose-your-own Tier 5 and a choose-your-own Tier 4 skin in SMITE, which means that you'll be able to get highly sought-after skins for free. Meanwhile, SMITE 2 will offer you the ability to unlock up to 11 skins for free, which is connected to one per year that SMITE has been around.
If you're not interested in the physical rewards, you can also get a slew of items in the form of badges that will allow you to show off your skills, achievements, rare skills, and more. You will have one for your Mastery Level and Star Count on each God, meaning that if you devoted your life to a particular deity, you will be able to show that off in SMITE 2!
Cross-Gen Skins (Year 11)
There are some good news for everyone, however — everything skin you acquire for Year 11 will become a "Cross-Gen skin", which will be an item that transfers straight into the sequel when it releases. This is available for gem-purchasable skins, as they will all be built twice by the team in order to support both the older version and the newer one.
Everything that you acquire will then be immediately available for you to get in SMITE 2 and you get to keep it for SMITE as well, so you'll get double bang for your buck. Whether the gems bought to acquire the skins will also become Legacy Gems is still to be confirmed.
Why Isn't Everything Getting Ported?
There are a lot of things that are being left behind when SMITE 2 releases and a lot of it will be skins that have become aged and old. In order to create SMITE 2, the game had to be recreated from scratch, and with 1,600 skins, several maps, over a hundred gods, and more, it's an unfeasible number of worker hours that couldn't be afforded alongside creating something that captured SMITE's essence whilst still being better.
Will SMITE Still Be Supported?
A fear in everyone's minds is whether the 11-year-old title will continue past the release of its sequel, SMITE 2. The short and sweet of it is yes, but to what extent remains to be seen. At the moment, it has been shared that the game's servers will continue running and it will receive regular updates "for the foreseeable future", but for how long that will be after the release of SMITE 2 is still up in the air.
This is especially true due to the main reason that Hi-rez and Titan Forge Studios are making the change, which is…
Why is SMITE Getting a Sequel?
SMITE has been around for nearly 11 years now, and though it's been a fantastic decade-long ride, its core foundations are — quite frankly — too technically old. Built-in Unreal Engine 3, which is two generations old now, it's starting to become a limitation for the developer to handle. SMITE's age is starting to show in its technical side, limiting graphics, UI, audio, and even god creation.
The Unreal Engine 3 SMITE is not compatible with Unreal Engine 5, which means that the game had to be built from the ground up in order to make the multi-generational leap. Without the shackles of the age-old Unreal Engine 3, SMITE 2 will be able to be more creative, more powerful, and "just strictly better". The limitations that come with the older engine will be lifted, and Titan Forge Games will be able to work better around the sequel.
Which Platforms Will SMITE 2 Be Available In?
The good news is that SMITE 2 is being built for a large variety of platforms, including the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X|S, and PC via the usual Steam and the Epic Games Store. The even better news is that it's also being built with the Steam Deck in mind, meaning that it's likely to be Steam Deck Playable at the very least, if not outright Verified when it releases.
The bad news, however, is that SMITE is saying goodbye to last-gen platforms. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and even the Nintendo Switch are not getting official support due to the power required to run the game in Unreal Engine 5.
When Will SMITE 2 Release?
Now's time for the hard part — SMITE 2 is still in pre-alpha development, meaning that it is very early into its development cycle. There is no official release date confirmed for the game at the moment, and the only thing that's available is an upcoming alpha that players will be able to access in Spring 2024.
This alpha will be limited in terms of roster and feature availability, and Titan Forge Games is going back to its roots like with SMITE — closed beta. The strategy was employed for the original, where you'll be able to buy the Founder's Pack (which will include the highly sought-after Ultimate God Pack), which will be free once the game releases out of its early access stage.
That's it for everything we know about SMITE 2 — here's hoping to more information in the coming months leading up to the closed Alpha test and beyond! VVGL and VVGB!
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