SMITE 2 Is Going Free-To-Play! Release Date, Platforms, & What To Expect
SMITE 2 was announced about one full calendar year ago and has received alpha testing from the community since May 2024. It began with limited weekend-only tests and eventually became a 24/7 test starting in September 2024, but only for players who purchased a founder's pack. Now, the developers at Titan Forge Games are confident the sequel has reached the point that it's ready to go free-to-play for everyone.
The developers understand the importance of improving SMITE without going too far and making a game that feels like it's for a completely different audience. For some, they've succeeded, and for others, they've fallen short. Reviews of SMITE 2 during its alpha phase have been mixed, largely because they've changed quite a lot.
If Titan Forge Games go too far with SMITE 2, it will end up feeling like a completely different game entirely and as if it were for a different audience entirely. If they don't go far enough, it'll feel like they could've just released this as an update to SMITE 1 and making it a separate game was a marketing gimmick or something.
With many Overwatch fans feeling gipped by Overwatch 2 and feeling like it could easily have just been a regular update to Overwatch 1 instead, it's even more paramount that Titan Forge Games avoid that reception with SMITE 2.
A lot of info is known about the future of SMITE 2, let's discuss the release date and provide an overview of what's to expect moving forward with the successful and unique MOBA.
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When Is SMITE 2 Releasing And What Platforms Is It On?
After months of limited testing, SMITE 2 is set to go free-to-play on January 14, 2025. To help mark the game making it's next major step toward officially releasing as a full game, it'll be leaving alpha status and officially beginning its beta testing phase when it goes free-to-play.
Players and fans who looked at the state of SMITE 2 a few months ago, saw how barebones and early on in development it was, and then lost interest and haven't looked at anything since, may want to consider giving it some attention once more.
SMITE 2 has come a long way in the last few months and the free-to-play beta launch will be its biggest update yet. Let's take a look at what'll be in SMITE 2 on January 14. The SMITE 2 free-to-play beta will be available on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
What To Expect From SMITE 2 Free-To-Play On January 14?
SMITE 2 is a complete overhaul of SMITE 1. Titan Forge Games has remade the entire game from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 to upgrade it from where it was in Unreal Engine 3. This has allowed for not only new gameplay experiences but also a higher level of detail in the art.
One thing that deserves to get mentioned on its own, is that SMITE 2 will be gaining text chat on PC. This is a feature that many players have wanted on the alpha and its finally coming with the beta. This will almost certainly mean players will experience some more toxicity on average, but it'll also allow for better communication and the ability to ask questions.
Here are some of the things SMITE 2 offers:
- New UI
- New HUD
- New Conquest map layout
- The new Conquest map will have an Arthurian theme
- Changes to the monetization to be more player-friendly
- Game modes returning from SMITE 1 (Joust, Duel, Assault)
- NEW GOD: Aladdin
- 45 total gods
- NEW feature: Aspects
We'll have specific guides for the more complex additions like the new God Aladdin or Aspects, but here are some broad overviews:
New Conquest Map Layout
The new conquest map features some of the most changes a new map in SMITE ever has. The developers want junglers to keep moving as much as possible and have taken actions to help them do that.
There are more consumables and more camps in the jungle. New jungle features in SMITE 2:
Feature Type | Feature Description |
|---|---|
Sidelane camps | Jungle camps have been placed near the sidelanes to offer a safer source of farm |
New Cyclops Camp | Drops a consumable ward when defeated |
New Scorpion Camp | The Scorpion camp is a harder camp to defeat than regular camps, but if defeated it will drop the "Eye of the Jungle" consumable which can be used once and will ping all enemy positions on the map |
New Fire Giant Consumable Drop | The Fire Giant now drops the "Obsidian Dagger" which can be used to deal 500 true damage to the user and giving them 20% more attack speed and damage for 6s. If the user dies from the damage the knife does, they'll resurrect to full health and the buff will last twice long |
The developers have also added "Breakables" which are little objects on the map that can be broken for an effect. For example, "Jars of Gold" can be broken near the Gold Fury and "Healing Wisps" can be found in the jungle as well. Little additions like this help reinforce the idea that they want players in the jungle and moving around; such as the Healing Wisps helping junglers stay topped off to look for one more camp or one more gank opportunity before backing to base to reset.
New System: Aspects
Aspects are very similar to a feature in Dota 2 known as "Facets" and are decisions that players make before the game begins during the draft after selecting their hero. It's a simple concept to understand, but can quickly get overwhelming if thinking about how many there truly are. For the purposes of this overview, we'll keep it simple and provide an example.
Aspects will generally target a specific, well, aspect of how a character is played and then change that core aspect into something different that allows the character to be played in an entirely new way than they normally would be.
Let's use Athena as an example. Athena is one of SMITE's most iconic Gods that is traditionally played as a support, but can also solo or jungle. Her ultimate ability "Defender of Olympus" allows her to teleport to an ally with a long channel. During that channeling process, the ally she's teleporting to is given an absorb shield.
Athena has an aspect that changes her ultimate to no longer target allies and no longer gives an ally a shield. Instead, it'll target an enemy and weaken the enemy she's targeting. This fundamentally changes the way Athena is going to be played in games where players choose to take this Aspect. It turns her ultimate from a purely supportive and reactionary resource into a more proactive and aggressive resource that allows her to get right on top of a key target.
Note: Only 20 Gods will have Aspects at the launch of SMITE 2's beta with the developers actively working to incorporate more.
NEW God: Aladdin
We'll keep this section brief as well since we'll have a more in-depth Aladdin guide, but Aladdin is a magical assassin which is one of SMITE's rarer archetypes. He's intended to be a jungler and has hybrid scaling. He has some unique features that push SMITE to its limits and takes advantage of being on Unreal Engine 5 now.
Yeah, Aladdin essentially has 2 mechanics that would have not been possible in SMITE 1, the wall run and the lamp arena.
- Hi-Rez "Ajax"
The developers also got creative and unique with how they chose incorporate his genie and three wishes into his kit design.
