Hi-Rez Studios concentrates all hopes on Smite 2 as Deadlock looms

Divine Knockout and Realm Royale Reforged will be shut down

Marco Wutz | Oct 21, 2024

Hi-Rez Studios

Hi-Rez Studios announced that it will shut down the servers for Divine Knockout and Realm Royale Reforged on February 17, 2025, as a result of its ongoing reorganization efforts.

Evil Mojo, the team responsible for Realm Royale Reforged has already reduced the cost of all in-game items to one Crown and added a daily login reward worth 100 Crowns, allowing players to quickly unlock everything and play to their hearts’ content until the deadline arrives.

Red Beard Games, the studio behind Divine Knockout, took similar measures in its game.

Hi-Rez CEO Stewart Chisam noted that the company is putting all of its hopes and resources into the success of Smite 2, the sequel to its popular third-person MOBA. However, this is now less of an assured success than only a couple of months ago due to the official reveal of Valve’s Deadlock.

The third-person MOBA from the Dota 2 makers is already among the top 30 most-played titles on Steam at the moment, despite not even being available to the broad public yet. Playtesters have been immensely impressed with the game, marking it out to be a multiplayer hit on Steam – and thus a serious threat to Smite 2.

Aside from Smite 2, Hi-Rez is currently supporting the original Smite, its hero-shooter Paladins, and Rogue Company – though with end-of-service announcements for two of games already being made, fans of the other titles currently rest a bit uneasy.

Published Oct 21, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg