Third-person MOBA Smite to be launched on March 25

Developer Hi-Rez Studios has announced that its 3D MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, Smite, will be getting an official launch on March 25 next year. The game has spent more than a year in beta, and the studio seems to be ready to push it out to the masses. One can see the popularity of the beta from the fact that it already has more than 2.5 million registered players.

To celebrate the launch, the studio is hosting a $100,000 LAN tournament in the weekend after release. Sadly, the tournament will only be open to American players, since the tournament will take place in Atlanta, Georgia. It will include the top four teams in North America and Europe who have won the qualifying rounds in the Smite Weekly Tournament Series, which is going to start on January 4. If you like watching eSports, you can check out the tournament live on Twitch.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Smite is finally getting an official release

If you’ve been playing the beta of the game, your progress will be carried over the general release. All beta players who manage to reach level 30 before the release date will also get the Cacodemon skin for the playable god Ymir.

Smite has a rather interesting twist on the MOBA genre. Instead of going with the traditional top-down view present in games like Dota 2 and League of Legends, Smite is a third-person action game with more emphasis on skill-shots rather than targeted abilities. All the playable characters in the game are mythological figures from real-world folklore and mythological stories. For example, you can have Kali duking it out against Zeus. You can still take part in the open beta by registering on the official website.