The President of Hi-Rez Studios, Stewart Chisam, revealed on Twitter today that the company will be undergoing layoffs to "ensure Hi-Rez's long-term success". In the extensive post, Chisam indicated that Hi-Rez will be shifting its focus toward positioning its upcoming Smite successor Smite 2 for a long and sustainable future.

According to Chisam, the layoffs will impact those in marketing and publishing as well as the Evil Mojo, G&A, and Titan Forge divisions at Hi-Rez. The game division of Hi-Rez will concentrate efforts entirely on Smite 2 moving forward except for small teams that will support light updates for both Paladins and the original Smite. In the near term, the focus will shift to gameplay development for Smite 2 including new mode?s and gods ahead o?f its free-to-play launch next year.

This news has a real human impact at a tough time for workers in this industry. Each impacted individual is a talented and dedicated professional who has poured their heart and soul into our games. Letting them go is a heartbreaking decision, reflects a failure in my leadership, and one for which I take personal accountability. These are all good people who contributed positively to the company; none should view this as a personal failure. I extend my deepest thanks to them for their contributions to the ??company and their role in helping entertain and bring joy to millions of players.

- Stewart Chisam, President of Hi-Rez Studios

Hi-Rez joins the many other companies in the games industry that suffering from layoffs this year. Wi?th thousands of jobs lost in the space just this year alone with no sign of it ending, it's hard to picture exa??ctly what the games industry will look like in the near future.

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Developer Titan Forge Games and publisher Hi-Rez Studios revealed today that the popular mythological MOBA SMITE will be getting a sequel. SMITE 2 upgrades the third-person MOBA to Unreal Engine 5 while also introducing new content and keeping some features from the original game. Moving forward both versions of SMITEwill continue to function? as separate standalone games.

Two Standalone Games

Follow-up tweets confirmed that while Gods from the original will also be in the sequel, some may have some changes. While some Gods will stay true to their existing original SMITE versions, others will receive new animations, FX, and even reimagined abilities. The Goddess Hecate will be the first SMITE 2 exclusive God, featuring ranged magical abilities that allow her to reach throug??h?? dimensions and even travel in liminal space.

The itemization sy?stem and Relics are also getting an overhaul. Relics themselves will be no more, but your entire 6-slot? item inventory can now get an activated effect which is triggered by a simple button press.

New Stealth Zones allow players to ambush their enemies from the shadows, while the map itself will get some reworks as well. New game-changing buffs can be acquired by defeating minions such as ??the Gold Fury with an evolving Jungle.

While the upgrade to UE5 in SMITE 2 certainly looks nice, players have some justified concerns over what happens to the existing content they've purchased from the original SMITE over the years. According to the SMITE 2 Steam Page, a system called Divine Legacy will grant access to cross-gen skins, badges, and legacy gems for players who link their SMITE account to their SMITE 2 account. However, there's no information as of yet exactly what will be t??ransferred, or if there are any sort of limitat?ions to it.

According to IGN, not all content is carried over. In-game Skins released before Year 11 of SMITE won't be carried over as the team feels it isn't feasible to recreate the vast amount of content SMITE built over the last decade.

An Alpha playtest for SMITE 2 is planned for Spring 2024.

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