When gods collide!
Smite 2 is the successor of Smite 1 brought to us by Hi-Rez Studios, after a 10 year life span Hi-Rez have decided its time for a major upgrade in engine power moving to the unreal engine 5, this has allowed them to bring us a whole new item shop whilst also having in game aspects that alter the way your favourite gods abilities work.
Smite 2 sits in the same category of gaming with other titan games like League of Legends and DOTA 2, Whilst they are dancing with giants of the top down MOBA genre Hi-Rez has adapted a 3rd person camera that brings a deeper sense of emersion whilst traversing the map and engaging in 10 man team fights.
The best part about smite 2 is that it is completely free to play, it does have in game currency but you can also make purchases with real money to enhance your god availability if you want to skip saving up for them or just change what skin your gods use.
If you played Smite 1 and made in game purchases make sure you linked your smite 1 and 2 accounts as you may be able to get some of your gems back in legacy gems form allowing you to buy things at a discounted price as apart of their divine legacy event. please be aware account linking and merging are different and merging is not available due to the changes made for Smite 2
Item Changes:
Smite 2 has completely overhauled their system of how you build items from Smite 1.
Previously you were locked to building your damage typing or defensive items where as in Smite 2 you can build whatever item you like as long as you have the gold.
This brings an expanded amount of itemisation builds from attack speed and critical chance too a fully defensive ability spamming god whilst removing this restriction majority of gods follow a typical build path of items with the variation coming from the team you are fighting.
Auto Buy:
With the auto buy system this allows newer players to let the game dictate what is built and when depending on what build you select in the recently added build selector where you follow other peoples guides or what the game feels is the correct items for that god.
Whilst this feature is a great suggestion for new players i would honestly recommend turning it off and either learning in practice mode or trial and error in unranked games so you can learn the game on a deeper level and learn when you need to adapt the build due to circumstances that you face.
Auto Level:
As you are in game, the more experience you gain allows your gods abilities to do more base damage before adding the multipliers from your items.
The auto level system allows the game to decide what is the most optimal way of levelling your abilities in a general way, whilst this can take a lot of pressure off newer players understanding how and when certain levels should be prioritised depending on circumstances is a major part of the game.
Whilst as helpful as the auto buy system i think it should be turned off to fully learn and adapt.
Itemisation and Features:
Conquest:
Conquest is the basic 5v5 game mode that brings 3 Lanes known as Solo, Mid and Duo whilst having 2 jungle sections splitting the map up allowing for tight knit team fights along twisting paths, angles for flanking opponents and even stand alone camps that can give you buffs to enhance your god.
Gold gain comes from killing minions, destroying towers and killing or assisting in other gods deaths across the whole map and is the same way across all game modes
Conquest does also have game modes that include AI controlled bots that allow newer players to learn the game at their pace or experienced players to test item changes.
Personally i would recommend this mode for more experienced players or players who want to dive right in due to the deeper mechanics of the game it could be overwhelming for newer players.
Joust:
Joust is a 3v3 game mode that brings you one main lane with a section of jungle on the side, whilst being a bit faster style of play due to everyone being in one lane in a standoff situation.
This game mode allows smaller groups of players to play comfortably with their friends even if they don’t have a full team available.
It also helps the newer players get used to the game without the feeling of pressure to win their lane and effect things that are happening in other lanes so they can fully learn the god they are playing in that game.
Personally i would recommend this for newer players that want to feel less pressure to get up to speed quickly or small teams wanting to build chemistry with the people they are playing with.
Assault:
Assault is currently in developmental stages whilst still being playable the map is ever changing and constantly evolving as they add and remove features that change the dynamic of the game.
This game mode brings not only chaotic teams due to the random initial god choices but also a player trade system and a god re roll system in case you want what someone else does not.
It also adds a variation of item purchasing which means you can only buy items if you die and stay in fountain to purchase the items.
This mode i would recommend for players who want to learn all gods and haven`t found the exact in game role they want to play of any experience level.
Game Modes
Pick your Pantheon
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Arthurian
Notable Gods:
Merlin and Mordred
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Celtic
Notable Gods:
Cernunnos and The Morrigan
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Chinese
Notable Gods:
Guan Yu, Hua Mulan, Jing Wei and Nu Wa
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Egyptian
Notable Gods:
Anhur, Anubis, Geb, Khepri, Neith, Ra and Sobek
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Greek
Notable Gods:
Achilles. Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Cerberus, Hades, Hecate, Medusa, Nemesis, Poseidon, Thanatos and Zeus
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Hindu
Notable Gods:
Agni, Kali and Rama
Pick your Pantheon
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Japanese
Notable Gods:
Amaterasu, Danzaburou, Izanami and Susano
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Korean
Notable Gods:
Princess Bari
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Maya
Notable Gods:
Awilix, Cabrakan, Chaac, Hun Batz and Kukulkan
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Norse
Notable Gods:
Fenrir, Loki, Odin, Sol, Thor, Ullr and Ymir
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Polynesian
Notable Gods:
Pele
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Roman
Notable Gods:
Bacchus, Bellona, Cupid, Hercules and Vulcan
Pick your pantheon
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Slavic
Notable Gods
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Tales of Arabia
Notable Gods:
Aladdin
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Voodoo
Notable Gods:
Baron Samedi
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Yoruba
Notable Gods:
Yemoja
Smite 2 offers already a wide range of Gods to play from they still have a lot of gods from the original Smite 1 to add in with fan favourites such as Janus, Tiamat, Discordia and Ah Puch all still in development with future release dates.
Whilst not knowing for certain of those release dates the developers have said the original gods will be returning whilst they add even more new gods with interesting abilities and completely new mechanics to allow for endless scenarios and opportunities as you fight your way to victory.
Whilst the game is free and you can earn the gods as you please, there are 3 different buyable packs that allow for a god pass which gives you every current god and newly releasing gods the day they come out.
Summary:
Smite 2 being the direct successor from Smite 1 and being a beta build I think they have managed to do a good job over revamping the core system of the game with the adaption of allowing all gods to use all items now where as before you were restricted by your damage type which has allowed for some interesting build paths.
Adding the aspects has been majorly a successful alteration of the game although I do believe that some need to be tweaked as some feel either very strong or very weak overall whilst also being quite situational
Personally the restriction on 5 man ranked teams not being allowed due to at the time community feedback is a huge mistake considering the progress and improvements that have allowed DOTA2 and League of legends to make from a fundamental game to the corporate level within esports,
My question is why in a team game do you restrict playing at a competitive level as a team especially with other business models that have been successful and helped push the game and the business into a stable position?
With taking everything into account and seeing how the game has developed from when I first started playing it has improved from server stability to very minimal crashes due to a lot happening at once.
Considering this is a beta it feels like their number one focus is on keeping things balanced with new items and new/returning gods instantly being able to fit into majority of scenarios without being complex on new players.
It does however feel like there has been a lot of focus on recovering money within microtransactions, whilst some i believe are worth the cost, if you wanted a wavy coloured name you would have to pay £40/$50 depending on your region which i cannot simply justify as a gamer considering a triple a title game is just a bit more expensive.
Whilst i do not see the micro transactions as problematic because they are purely cosmetic, but i do believe that if developers are going to add them in they should be reasonably priced like other companies have done.
Final Rating:
3 out of 5
The reason i have given Smite 2 a 3 out of 5 is because:
Whilst being a fun experience in game i feel the restriction of not being able to ranked que as a 5 man team almost forces you to either play conquest in a non ranked setting or the other game modes, which hinders the competitive edge whilst gaming with friends.
Graphically, I believe that the game stands in a sort of high medium place because whilst the game does look a lot better than Smite 1 that is sort of expected when committing to a major engine upgrade but also there has been times due to a major amount of particle effects it does cause a minor amount of frame lose.
Mechanically, whilst they have added a lot of base game features such as aspects and a fully open item building system i do not believe they have added enough to warrant a significant rise in rating, some aspects are hit and miss and the full item building can be overwhelming at times especially if you are new or it is not your main style of game.
This review is based of countless hours of playtime during the beta as i enjoy the game and playing through multiple patches, changes are going to happen which will effect everyone’s gameplay and thoughts, my views come from years of Smite 1 and regular playtime in the Smite 2 Beta.