Thursday 24 January 2013

Smite Open Beta Launches, $100K Tournament Announced

Hi-Rez Studios has officially launched the open beta for Smite in North America and Europe. The game can be downloaded right now from Smite’s official site, and offers the following new content and features:

  • Graphical update of Conquest Map
  • Practice match against new AI opponent Ra
  • In-game Team & Roster Management
  • Ranked Team Conquest queue Draft Picking for ranked and Challenge Conquest matches
  • Improved Spectator Camera for Tournament Admins (including a 3-minute delay for spectators to prevent cheating and improved spectator controls -- slow-motion, pause, rewind, fast-forward)

Hi-Rez notes that “all player progress and unlocks up until now will be preserved through Open Beta and into Release with no planned character wipes.” Players who reach level 30 during the Beta period will also receive “a Limited Edition cosmetic skin for the frost giant Ymir” that will be available once Smite is officially released.

Separately, Hi-Rez also announced an upcoming Smite competitive season that will launch with a tournament where players can win $100,000. Additional details and a specific schedule will be announced “in the coming weeks.”

“Smite has been our fastest growing game to date, with over 900,000 players participating in Beta already”, said Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris. “We’ve been giving out keys very liberally, but today we officially drop the key requirement in order to stress and stabilize our North American and European servers in preparation for release. We will continue to polish the game, release additional gods, and further refine the god and item balance over the coming weeks before a general release later this quarter.”

More details on the open beta, including patch notes, are available on Smite’s official site.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.


Source : ign[dot]com

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