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Smite 2

Smite 2 Interview: Titan Forge on going bigger, bolder, and better

We sat down with the action MOBA developers to talk more about the novelties coming to Smite 2.

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I was able to attend the official announcement of Smite 2 at the Smite World Championships in Arlington recently. Here I noticed that Smite and Smite 2 seem very similar from a gameplay perspective. After watching Smite gameplay on the big screen at the esports event and getting a quick taste of Smite 2, I actually had a hard time spotting major gameplay differences. Beyond the graphical upgrade, the changes in Smite 2 are harder to spot for someone that's less familiar with the game. That's why, among other things, I asked developers from Titan Forge Games, Travis Brown, Alex Cantatore and Daniel Cooper, to elaborate on how Smite 2 will be different.

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"Obviously the Unreal Engine 5 graphics are probably the biggest, most noticeable thing," executive producer Alex Cantatore admitted. "However, outside of the graphical improvements and the lighting improvements that are there, the back-end side for us is a lot more technically capable. We can do a lot more with animations, we can do a lot more with creating abilities. And then on the gameplay side, we're looking at changing how some of the core stats function. So strength and intellect and all items being built on all gods is a big opening of what characters can and can't do."

I played a match with the Norse god Ymir during a two-hour Smite 2 preview at the venue, and this god is actually characteristic for the changes coming to the game, according to Cantatore: "Way back in the history of Smite 1, Ymir used to actually be able to build physical power and crit, and that's something that we're opening back up again." This should be a big change for Smite veterans. "That kind of opening is a really big deal, as well as the fact that we're going to allow active items. Right now in Smite 1, all the items are purely passive, and so you have to know the trigger conditions to get them to activate. In Smite 2 that's essentially six extra key lines of different customisation that you can do to your character. Or you can go the standard Smite 1 path and go with those passive items."

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Design director Daniel Cooper added to the list of the most important novelties the addition of a new action button. "One of the big changes is there's now a button that allows you to interact with things in the map. And that's opened up a lot of new gameplay opportunities. Just one example is there's a door at the back of the Fire Giant pit that you can push the interact button now to open if you pay 10% of your life to do it. It's an interesting new tactical way to get into the fight and maybe surprise the team that's trying to kill the Fire Giant."

Concerning the new engine, general manager & creative director Travis Brown explained that it also allows some important stability improvements. "Architecture is not the sexiest topic, but the game is a lot more stable on the back end," which is something players will likely notice immediately. Another improvement will be made to matchmaking: "Our current matchmaking has a lot of problems with how it onboards players to the game", Brown explained. Players are automatically assumed to be of average skill, meaning you get matched with more experienced average players, which often leads to new players losing most of their first matches. The new matchmaking lets players start at level zero, while also tracking whether people are more comfortable initially in certain roles. According to Brown, Smite 2 "will take into account what role you're playing and your different skill in different roles. So it's not going to put you into a match that you just don't have any chance to win."

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Not everything is about the new engine, though. There are also more than a 100 new gods coming to Smite 2. When I asked the developers where they draw their inspiration for upcoming gods, they replied they already have a huge backlog of potential gods. "We've been working on Smite 1 for so long that we have our own internal list of gods," Cantatore told me. "It has to have like a hundred characters on there that people internally have been really passionate about." Additionally, they ask around within the community for inspiration from time to time. When pondering the addition of a new character, the developers are looking for novelties that can make them stand out from existing gods. "What helps round out our roster, what are we currently missing? One of the reasons why we chose to do Hecate (a Greek witch-god) as the first all-new god in Smite 2 was because we were like, man, that's a character that would look really cool with flowing robes," Cooper added. The new engine makes it possible to add new gods in ways that weren't possible before, which is why Titan Forge will not be carrying over all the skins from Smite to the new game.

When I asked about any new pantheons that might be added in Smite 2, they replied they are "considering adding new cultures, but don't have anything to announce right now." However, Cantatore said "we do have a list of potential options that we have". The main criterion for adding a new pantheon is actually having the option of adding at least two new gods. They prefer not adding cultures that have only one god. Cantatore added: "Cthulhu is the only great old one in Smite 1 and some people keep bugging us to go back and do other ones, but really we think that Cthulhu is the most important one and we'll eventually get to another one."

One of the hardest things about development right now for Titan Forge is optimisation and capturing the right feel compared to Smite. The developers remarked that rebuilding the game in Unreal Engine 5 is "like death by thousand cuts in reverse. Sometimes the game doesn't feel right and you can't quite put your finger on it, because there's like 20 really small things and you have to go dive into them and figure out what they are." They also shared a little anecdote on what they had been working on recently: "Right before we flew out here, we realised that we're handling crit chance calculations differently in Smite 2 than Smite 1. And so now we're having the conversation like, oh, what way feels better? Is this good? Should we go back to the Smite 1 system? So we have a lot of little things to consider."

The balancing between going a new route or sticking to what's familiar to Smite players also translates to other aspects of the game, including the new soundtrack for Smite 2. Cooper shared some insights about their development of new music: "We had a lengthy Slack conversation, where we had iterations of the Smite 2 theme and we were trying to be like, I want to feel that nostalgia hit when I hear this, but hear something new." Brown remarked about the new music that existing players "can basically hum the themes in their sleep, right? We wanted Smite 2's music to be so that when a Smite 1 player hears that, it's familiar, but then breaking into something new. That's what we settled on right now on the music." The three developers then joked among each other that the new music will be "more orchestral. Specifically, it's more cello. There's just more cello." Lastly, they had a laugh about the fact that they often give their audio team a hard time with their feedback, as Brown remembered telling them "I'm hearing a 'ting ting ting', but can you do more of a 'whooo' there?"

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In an earlier session with the developers, they called Smite 2 "Smite, but better". My take from my interview with the developers confirms this in several ways. Overall, it's clear that Titan Forge is trying their best to capture the success of Smite and refresh it with some important improvements for Smite 2, including stability improvements, new gods making use of the new engine, and an updated but familiar soundtrack. An early alpha of the game will be accessible this spring for early access.

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