I recently attended the official announcement of Smite 2 at the Smite World Championships in Arlington. Here I noticed that from a gameplay perspective, Smite and Smite 2 look very similar. After watching Smite’s gameplay on the big screen at an esports event and giving Smite 2 a quick spin, I actually struggled to spot major gameplay differences. Graphics upgrades aside, the changes in Smite 2 are harder to spot for those less familiar with the game. That’s why, among other things, I asked developers Travis Brown, Alex Cantatore, and Daniel Cooper of Titan Forge Games to detail how Smite 2 will be different.
“Obviously, Unreal Engine 5’s graphics are probably the biggest and most eye-catching thing,”Executive producer Alex Cantatore admits.“However, in addition to graphics improvements and lighting improvements, the backend is much more technically capable for us. We can do more with animation, we can do more with creative capabilities. And then, In terms of gameplay, we’re looking at changing the way some of the core stats work. So strength and wisdom and all the items built upon the gods are a big starting point in what characters can and can’t do.
During a two-hour preview of Smite 2 at the venue, I got to play a match with the Norse god Ymir, who according to Cantatore is actually a feature of the game’s changes: “Back in SMITE 1’s history, Ymir used to be able to build stamina and critical damage, and that’s something we’re opening up again. This should be a big change for Smite veterans.“This opening up is a really important thing, and we’re going to allow active items. Now in SMITE 1, all items are purely passive, so you have to know the triggers to activate them. In Smite 2, these are basically six extra key lines that you can customize your character in different ways. Or you can go the standard Smite 1 route and opt for those passive items.
Design director Daniel Cooper has added a new action button to the list of most important novelties.“One of the big changes is that there’s now a button that lets you interact with things in the map. This opens up a lot of new gameplay opportunities. For example, there’s a door at the back of the Fire Giant Pit, and if you spend 10 % of your life to do this, you can now press the interact button to open it. It’s a fun new tactical way to get into combat that might surprise the team trying to kill the Fire Giant.
Regarding the new engine, general manager and creative director Travis Brown explained that it also allows for some important stability improvements.“Architecture isn’t the sexiest topic, but the game is much more stable on the back end”,Players may notice this immediately. Another improvement will be made to the matching mechanism: “Our current matchmaking system has a lot of issues with getting players into the game.”, Brown explained. Players are automatically assumed to be of average skill, which means you’ll be matched against more experienced average players, which often results in new players losing most of their first games. The new matchmaking mechanic lets players start at level zero, while also tracking whether people are initially more comfortable with certain characters. According to Brown, Smite 2 “The role you play and the different skills you have in different roles will be taken into account. So it doesn’t put you into a game where you have no chance of winning at all.
Here is an ad:
Not everything is about the new engine, though. There are also over 100 new gods coming to Smite 2. When I asked the developers where they drew inspiration for the upcoming gods, they responded that they already had a large backlog of potential gods. “We developed “God“Havoc 1″ has been around for so long that we have our own internal list of gods.”Cantatore told me.“It has to have a hundred characters and people are really passionate about it internally.Additionally, they look around the community for inspiration from time to time. When considering adding new characters, developers are looking for something novel that will make them stand out from the existing gods.“What would help round out our roster, what are we currently missing? One of the reasons we chose Hekate as the first brand new god in Smite 2 is because we were like, man, this is a dress-up The character looks really cool in the flowing robe,”Cooper added. The new engine makes it possible to add new gods in ways that were previously impossible, which is why Titan Forge won’t be bringing all of Smite’s skins to the new game.
When I asked about any new pantheons that might be added to Smite 2, they replied:They’re “looking into adding new cultures, but have nothing to announce right now.” However, Cantatore said“We do have a list of potential options.”The main criterion for adding a new pantheon is actually the option to add at least two new gods. They would rather not add to the culture of having only one god. Cantatore added: “Cthulhu isThe only great old character in SMITE 1, some people have been bugging us to go back and do others, but we actually think Cthulhu is the most important one and we’ll eventually get another one.
One of the hardest things in development right now for Titan Forge is optimizing and capturing the right feel compared to Smite.Developer comments about rebuilding game in Unreal Engine 5“It’s like being killed by a thousand cuts. Sometimes the game just doesn’t feel right and you can’t quite put your finger on it because there are 20 really small things and you have to dig into them and figure out what they are. They also shared some anecdotes about their recent work: “Just before we flew here, we realized that the way we handle critical hit chance calculations in Smite 2 is different from SMITE 1. So now our conversation is, oh, what feels better? This way Okay? Should we go back to the Smite 1 system? So we have a lot of little things to consider.
The balance between going a new route or sticking to what Smite players are familiar with also translates to other aspects of the game, including Smite 2’s new soundtrack. Cooper shared some insights into their development of new music: “We had long Slack conversations and we went back and forth on the Smite 2 theme and we tried to be, I wanted to feel that sense of nostalgia when I heard the news, but hear something new.Brown talks about newmusic time said existing performers“Basically humming the theme in your sleep, right? We want Smite 2’s music to be something that will feel familiar to SMITE players when they hear it, but then break into something new.” That’s what we’re musically certain about right now.The three developers then joked to each other that the new music would“It’s more orchestral. Specifically, it’s more like a cello. There’s just more cello. Finally, they laughed and said they often gave the audio team a hard time with feedback because Brown remembered to tell them“I hear the ‘ding-ding’ sound, but can you do more ‘whooshing’ in there?”
In an earlier meeting with the developers, they said Smite 2 for “Smite, but better.”My findings from interviews with developers confirm this in several ways. Overall, it’s clear that Titan Forge is doing its best to capture the success of Smite and refresh it with some important improvements to Smite 2, including stability improvements, new gods with a new engine, and an updated yet familiar soundtrack . An early alpha version of the game will be available for early access this spring.
Here is an ad:
