A total of around 50 Gods will be available when Smite 2 launches into free-to-play version 1.0, consisting of a mix of revamped and all-new characters. As of February 2024, there will be 130 Gods available in the original Smite, and we spoke with several members of the Titan Forge Games team about the considerations that go into carrying each God into the game’s sequel, why 50 is the perfect number to start with, and which God they wanted to get rid of altogether.
At the time of writing, Smite 2 is still in the pre-alpha stage, and ten Gods have been reworked and implemented into the upcoming PC game. During the tenth Smite World Championships, Smite 1 and 2 Executive Producer Alex Cantatore confirmed that 25 to 30 Gods would make it into the Smite 2 alpha, including the brand-new Goddess Hecate. The developer then plans to increase that number to 50 for the 1.0 release date, for good reason.
“One of the biggest reasons people tell us they don’t want to start playing a MOBA is because there’s 130 gods, each with four abilities and a passive, and I need to learn 600 things before I can even start to have fun, right?” Alex says. “We think it’s really important that we start at a lower number and get to the fifties pretty quickly because that’s a good number for diversity in matches, but it’s still a low enough number that you can learn it relatively quickly and not be overwhelmed.” Great news for newbies, but what about long-time Smite fans?
Titan Forge Games is well aware that “every character is someone’s favorite,” as Alex continues, “We plan to grow the roster pretty quickly… We understand that people are waiting for their favorite Gods, [and] we really need to make sure that we’re getting the Gods over fast enough to make the current players really happy.”
Don’t worry if you’re a Smite veteran, though, as it’s clear that Titan Forge has your best interests at heart, specifically when it comes to reworking Gods for Smite 2.
“We want to look at each character – first and foremost, is there anything about you playing that character that makes you feel like that it would just feel better… any quality-of-life improvement that we can make?” says Titan Forge general manager Travis Brown. In Smite 1, “with the Ymir wall, there’s times where you could place the wall behind you, and it’s only if you’re moving fast enough. If you were slowed for any reason, that wall might pop up in front of you, right? In Smite 2, we know that players want to put it behind them, so let them put it behind, you know, so we’re looking for those types of improvements.”
PonPon Cooper, ex-pro and advanced game designer for Smite 2, adds that “There’s this Hades player who has like 100-plus stars. Our mastery system is stars above your level, his looks like barbed wire surrounding it, so many stars you can’t even count them. So if we were talking about that character and we change it significantly, we have to be really confident, and so we’re going to look at each character on a case by case basis.” He continues, “Reworking in Smite 1 is a super high bar. We actually publish why we’re doing this and what the criteria is and whether we met it or not. We back it up with data to try and make sure that people feel comfortable about it, because we’re gonna affect someone.” Travis adds, “Imagine now the Hades player, we change something and it’s just not better, he’s going to be frustrated. If you change something and 40% like it, 40% don’t like it, 20% don’t care, that’s just a huge waste.”
As for whether all 130 Smite Gods will make it over to the sequel, we’re not sure yet. Alex says, “You know, in the long run, we would love to bring every God over, but there’s a lot of Gods to bring over, right?” And there is one existing Smite God that Travis wants rid of altogether. “Going from Smite 1 to Smite 2, the starting point: Delete Loki,” he says, jokingly. Don’t panic. Loki is already in Smite 2 as one of the first ten Gods carried over to the new game. Luckily for us Loki fans, Travis says the team at Titan Forge feels they “can challenge each other on any decision” – so Loki stays.
While there may only be a handful of confirmed Smite 2 Gods right now, including Sol, confirmed with a cross-gen skin, and Bacchus, who we tested out in our Smite 2 preview, more are coming for the Smite 2 alpha this Spring. Prepare yourself by signing up now and familiarizing yourself with the new Smite 2 Legacy Gems and Divine Legacy mechanics, another way of rewarding returning Smite players.