If you’ve been sitting on the side-lines and keeping tabs on Smite 2, waiting for the game to follow the direction of its predecessor by becoming a free-to-play game, we have some good news for you. Hi-Rez Studios and developer Titan Forge Games has announced that Smite 2 will be shifting to a free-to-play format as soon as next week, on January 14, 2025 to be exact.
This free-to-play move won’t just make the game more widely accessible on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S devices, but it will also come alongside a big update that makes tons of changes and adds a bunch of new content.
For starters, building on the 5v5 Conquest and Arena modes that are available, the 3v3 Joust mode will be making its debut in the title next week too. It’ll come with a fresh Arthurian-themed map with teleporters and Stealth Grass, and you can see a snippet of it in the image below. Titan Forge also promises that the 5v5 Assault mode will arrive as well, and that the 1v1 Duel mode will debut in the game soon too.
On the topic of game modes, Conquest will see a range of improvements and changes, including a new layout that promises better flow, new jungle camps to farm and jungle boss pickups to earn, as well as a range of new breakables around the map to snag new consumable items and extra spendable gold.
As per Gods, a completely new one will be joining the fray. Aladdin, The Sultan, will be the first of the new pantheon known as the Tales of Arabia, and he will be a magical assassin designed for the Jungler role, who uses hybrid scaling. He’ll bring new movement technology that enables him to run on walls, a 3 Wishes ability that either attributes to a revive, extra earnable gold, or a complete ability cooldown reset, and has an Ultimate ability that traps enemies in his famed lamp.
Otherwise, four Smite 1 Gods are returning, with Ullr, Agni, Geb, and Mulan debuting as well. These four will be very similar but slightly different thanks to new abilities. Ullr will now leave behind slow or protection shred zones on his arrow and leap ability, Agni ignites himself when getting a kill to enable additional passive damage, Geb can leap on Roll-Out to knock up foes and also his shield now shares passive damage protection to allies, and Mulan can use a consumable banner to increase earned XP and improve ally movement speed, all while her Ultimate now improves as she scales each of her abilities.
One of the big new features includes Aspects, which are a way to adjust and change how Gods play in-game. With this free-to-play launch, there will be 20 out of the 45 Gods featuring Aspects, with some examples seeing Athena’s teleport now targeting enemies to weaken them or Cernunnos losing his ranged attacks for enhanced melee attacks. Aspects are chosen at the start of the game and are maintained for that full match duration.
Otherwise, Titan Forge promises UI improvements, PC text chat, buffed crowd control, improved item store elements, new messages, more helpful guides, enhanced auto build, performance optimisations, and also a big slate of balance changes too.
While all of this will be coming on January 14, you can expect tons of additional Smite 2 news between January 17-19 when the Founder’s Series Finals take place in Las Vegas.