Previously available to the Public, but as an open beta, Smite has officially been released. Developed by High-Rez Studio’s, Smite is a new take on the existing MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) style game. Instead of the classic view (overhead birds-eye view) that you normally get in these kinds of games, Smite changes this to a 3rd person view. Now as small of a change as this seems, it makes a HUGE difference in the way the game plays, and I think this change makes the game much more friendly to new users. Because you are using WASD to move and your mouse to look around, the game has a much more action oriented feel to it.

There are a variety of game modes, but the classic 5 VS 5, three lane Conquest Mode is the meat and potatoes here. They have also taken deity’s from mythology around the globe and created champions out of them, from Greek, Egyptian and Norse Mythology, all the way up to Hindu and Chinese Mythology, there are at current count, 51 gods playable in the game. They are also slowly adding more gods as time goes on, they have not stated yet how many they plan to add to the game, but so far they have a great assortment that can fit to a variety of play styles.

Smite is Free to Play, there is a weekly God rotation that cycles through the free gods available that week, as well as you can use in game currency or “Favour” as they call it, which you get by completing matches, or spend real money on Gems, which you can then use to buy gods, as well as skins for those gods. All in all not to uncommon for this kind of game, and it is a system that works well.

There are ranked games and Ladders in the game, and they are definitely aiming to get the game into e-sports with the built in Twitch Streaming as well as the fact that this weekend they are kicking things off with a rather large tournament in Atlanta, with more then $200k  in prize money up for grabs. for more information on the tournament, you can go here.

For the launch of Smite they also sent along this very cool Cinematic trailer showing off a few of the gods in Smite, you can take a look at that below.

All throughout the Beta I have been playing my fair share of Smite as well and you can see some matches and how the game plays at the links below.

So what else can I say really, this game is worth the download, and I have been playing the crap out of it recently, and this in spite of the fact that Titanfall has come out. It really is kind of like the MOBA for people who can’t/don’t like MOBA’s. At the very least it is free, and if you can’t get into it, well that is fine, no harm no foul, but I def urge you to take a look at it.

To download the game and get playing, head here to SMITE.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody