SMITE 2 has just been released at the SMITE World Championship – and with it comes the news that all your old SMITE 1 skins won’t transfer over. It’s not all bad news, as long-term players will be rewarded in other ways.
The reason for the lack of continuity between the two games is the amount of work required. These things don’t transition smoothly between Unreal Engine 3 (the engine SMITE 1 is based on) and SMITE 2’s new Unreal Engine 5 engine. Since it apparently takes two months for a skin to reach the quality Titanforged wants, they chose to start clean.
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OG players shouldn’t get too upset just yet, though, as they’ll still be rewarded in two main areas. The first one is the Heritage Gem. For every gem you spent in SMITE 1, you’ll get a Legacy Gem in SMITE 2. These legacy gems can be used to purchase “most” cosmetics in SMITE 2, but only up to 50% of the purchase price. So if a skin costs 100 gems, you can only spend 50 legacy gems on it.
For those with a history of Smite consumption, traditional gems are essentially 50% off. This means you’ll still have to spend money to buy the new stuff in SMITE 1, but it’ll be much less than the new wave of players.
Then there is the sacred legacy. This is a series of limited-time objectives that will unlock various special cosmetics based on your achievements over the years – such as your God Strike mastery level. If you’re purely interested in SMITE 1, you can also choose from a selection of tier 5 skins through Divine Legacy.
It also mentions that players will be able to unlock these Divine Legacy rewards from now on, so it’s unclear how much truly unique stuff is in store for SMITE veterans. We can see several Divine Legacy player icons showing SMITE 1’s Divine Mastery level, so perhaps this is purely a big number to give people some flexibility with.
This is a tricky situation, and impossible to try without pissing people off. Due to the differences between SMITE 1 and SMITE 2, it looks like they have no choice but to leave a bunch of stuff behind, but nonetheless, those who invested a lot of time and money may be left feeling miserable . Especially when they see how CS2 and Overwatch 2 handle this issue.
But then again, as new versions come out, these two games really throw the original games into the gutter. SMITE 1 will continue to be supported in the future, so your stuff doesn’t disappear without a trace.
Let us know what you think about this. Is it a good compromise, or will it negatively impact SMITE 2 on day one?
(iGamesNews’s travel to Arlington, Texas, and lodging for the 2024 SMITE World Championship are being paid for by Hi-Rez Studios.)
