Popular third-person MOBA Smite is getting a sequel, and we got the chance to check out this new and improved version of the game.
Currently available as a paid Early Access release, Smite 2 is slowly catching up to the original game’s cast of characters, adding two gods every three weeks and already featuring two exclusive playable characters with Mordred and Hecate.
So, how does the game compare to its predecessor? What new features have been added to this sequel? Is it worth buying into the beta? Find out the answer to these questions and more in our full preview for Smite 2.
For those not in the loop, Smite 2‘s entire purpose is to port the original game’s assets from Unreal 3 into Unreal 5, allowing Hi-Rez to essentially future-proof the game and remove some of the limitations that come when you work with software released in 2006.
The original Smite‘s gameplay suffered from a stiffness that never really went away, like the animation locks that happened after using traversal skills or how stiff the main weapon attack felt, and while Smite 2‘s gameplay isn’t necessarily perfect, it already feels much smoother even during Early Access.
So far, Hi-Rez managed to showcase how the engine switch will influence the game in the future with its new characters, Hecate and Mordred, who both have complex kits that might not have been possible to develop on their previous engine.
Unfortunately, Smite 2‘s engine of choice is the Unreal Engine 5, which means that even though it is future-proof, it also has a lot of performance issues. For a good chunk of the last month, Smite 2 simply didn’t work on DirectX12 for me, crashing whenever booted up. Thankfully, a DirectX11 version was also made available, but with the caveat that it had worse performance.
This isn’t necessarily an exclusivity, as Smite 2 doesn’t run well above medium settings in either DirectX version, but at the very least 12 had less stuttering, which meant that for a while the only viable way for me to play Smite 2 was on low settings, making me wonder why I didn’t just play the original game instead if the graphical upgrade was already out the window.
Despite the dips in frame rate, Smite 2 is reasonably stable, and hasn’t ever crashed mid-match for me, which is a good sign for a competitive multiplayer game. The developers have also fixed the DirectX12 issues, and now it almost always boots up properly.
Something that has unfortunately not changed is just how clunky the game’s combat feels, especially pertaining to its older gods. It doesn’t necessarily feel like lag, just more of an arbitrary delay that is baked into certain characters, which actively clashes with the idea of a competitive and fast-paced MOBA.
The serpent god Kukulkan is probably one of the worst offenders, having something like three steps to its ultimate skill before it actually starts up. The amount of time that passes between you pressing the button and the attack actually coming out feels like an eternity, and this happens to a lot of older characters in the game, especially mages.
It’s not all bad, though, since the smoother auto attack makes melee characters feel a lot more responsive, and hyper-mobile gods like Fenrir also benefit from the lack of animation locks on displacement skills. Hades is a mage that also benefits from these improvements, and doesn’t suffer too much from how delayed some projectiles feel thanks to most of his skills being area-wide.
Smite 2 is future-proofing done wrong, as Hi-Rez seems to be more interested in the content that can be added into the game, and not exactly the already existing content that could be fixed or tweaked. This is a game with 130+ characters and maybe five reworks, and while Hi-Rez has promised that characters will be tweaked, so far it doesn’t feel like any of the ones available have been.
Featuring less gods to play with, cosmetics that don’t carry over, charging players to be playtesters and performance issues, Smite 2 simply doesn’t do anything impressive to warrant a new number in its name, and it feels difficult to understand who is the audience for it.
The original game has been noticeably bleeding out active players ever since Smite 2 released, and it doesn’t seem like they are migrating to its sequel. Smite 2‘s non-NA servers are almost entirely empty, and while the game’s player count is acceptable for a paid alpha, it doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence.
A sequel for Smite should be, ideally, either a completely new title, built from the ground up, or a new version of the game with an improved combat system, but Smite 2 is neither, instead adding its existing shortcomings into the not-so-stable Unreal Engine 5 and hoping that by working against the clock it will be a finished game before all good faith is lost.
There’s nothing easy about game development, and porting a game of Smite‘s size is no joke, but it looks like Hi-Rez took the “easier” path by just throwing everything into a new engine, hoping that the influx of new microtransactions and paid beta access would end up justifying it.
The original game is not nearly tight enough for something simple like this to work, and the lack of substantial gameplay improvements present in Smite 2 is worrying.
Hecate and Mordred show that Smite 2‘s future isn’t necessarily bleak as far as new content goes, but it feels like Hi-Rez bit off more than they could chew by attempting to do so many things at once, neglecting the game’s older characters in exchange for showing off what Unreal 5 can do for the game.
Smite‘s sequel only has 24 of the 130 playable characters the original game had at the moment, and already feels like a mess when it comes to balancing. If Smite 2 sticks to its two gods per three weeks schedule, that means we are looking at over three years until the game’s roster is fully ported, maybe more considering how Hi-Rez plans to work on new gods alongside this schedule.
It’s difficult to imagine a future where Hi-Rez manages to port its old characters, develop new gods, and work on the game at a rate where it is stable and balanced all at the same time.
Smite 2 is a tough sell even for existing Smite players, since it’s implied that the previous game will be put in maintenance mode in favor of this release, which will be incomplete for a long time. It’s pretty obvious that players feel antagonized by this fact, as it feels like Hi-Rez is trying to provide a solution for something most of the community did not see as a problem to begin with.
Reception for the sequel has been mixed, a good chunk of it due to purchases and cosmetics not carrying over, instead being turned into legacy gems which have a seemingly more limited usage than they originally did. Hi-Rez has not done much to accommodate veteran players on this new release, and seem to instead just hope they’ll be on board because it’s a sequel.
In summary: If Smite 2 manages to survive long enough to have a future, it will probably have some really fun new characters. If you care about any of the old characters, then you might as well just stick to the older game, because so far nothing of substance has been done to the existing cast, and there’s a good chance Hi-Rez won’t be able to balance this game properly.
Smite 2 is currently available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows (through Steam’s Early Access).
