The pre-order codes for SMITE 2 Founder’s Packs are available for fans to grab, reserving their spots for the upcoming Closed Alpha set to happen sometime in early May. To offer transparency, the Hi-Rez Studio CEO, Stewart Chisam, wanted to provide a loose timeline for SMITE 2‘s expected development.
Nothing Chisam shared in his thorough post is set in stone, but it should offer players a better idea of when they can expect to get into the game. The full, official release for SMITE 2 shouldn’t be expected to happen for quite some time. However, a general timeline of the upcoming Closed Alphas and Open Betas is helpful for anyone who wants a better idea of when they can expect a larger roster and when they can switch over from the first SMITE to the sequel.
As SMITE 2 fans have been told, the first Closed Alpha is expected to launch in early May. We don’t have an exact time for it yet, but when the Closed Alpha arrives, we only have 36 to 72 hours to try out the game before getting kicked off, providing helpful feedback to the Titan Forge Games team. Chisam said these tests should run roughly once a month, with a limited god pool and functionality. Anyone playing during this time will likely be an experienced SMITE player, as the game has a high learning curve and few helpful beginner mechanics.
Once the Titan Forge Games team is satisfied with these results, likely sometime in late summer, the team will switch to a Closed Beta. The Closed Beta will always have servers on, but it won’t be open to everyone. Only those with a SMITE 2 key or anyone who purchased any version of the Founder’s Pack can join.
After this milestone, an Open Beta will launch for SMITE 2, and this will be free-to-play. Any player on the fence about jumping into the game now has a chance to try it themselves to see if they like what’s there. Chisam is guessing this will likely happen sometime in 2025, which means SMITE 2 could likely be closed off for those waiting for a free-to-play option for another year.
When the Titan Forge Games team believes they have a refined, polished version that runs on stable servers, the game will officially launch and continue to be free-to-play. However, Chisam says an official launch for SMITE 2 is silly because “SMITE is a live-service game, this is a somewhat silly milestone because this type of game is never ‘done.'” There should be a lot more functionality and god choices for players to pick from, offering far more depth than the Closed Alphas, Beta, or Open Beta offered.
Chisam offered no official timestamps for any of these milestones. However, we can expect an Open Beta for SMITE 2 to arrive sometime in 2025. Based on SMITE‘s original development from a decade ago, the game launched its Open Beta in January 2013 before officially being released in March 2014. If SMITE 2 follows the same pattern, it won’t be fully polished until 2026, nearly two years from now.
Published: Apr 16, 2024 05:57 pm