During a recent SMITE keynote, Hi-Rez Studios and developer Titan Forge Games announced SMITE 2, the sequel to the 2014 third-person MOBA, SMITE. While the upcoming title will include many new features and items, the developer revealed that most skins from the first game won’t carry over to SMITE 2, and fans aren’t happy.
Executive Producer Travis Brown explicitly confirmed this, saying “existing content from SMITE will not directly translate to SMITE 2.” This means most cosmetics SMITE players have acquired over the years will be lost to time. Titan Forge Games gave further details in the FAQ section of the SMITE 2 website, citing the leap from Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 5 as the cause, and stating it would take “246 person-years of work” to port over 1,600 SMITE skins to SMITE 2.
The developer explained it couldn’t port all the skins from SMITE while also making SMITE 2 “as amazing as [it] knew it could be.” To compensate, Titan Forge Games is introducing Legacy Gems to reward longtime SMITE players “for their time, money, and achievements.” Players can use Legacy Gems to pay for 50 percent of the price of most in-game purchases in SMITE 2, including skins, Battle Passes, and events.
Following the announcement, fans took to Reddit to voice their annoyance at the new currency and air their frustrations about the developer’s reasoning for excluding old skins in a Jan. 12 post by Reddit user JackGGRecon. “‘246 years,’ lmaoooooo. They blatantly lying in our faces for what reason? Just tell the truth and say you don’t want to port the skins over cause we won’t be able to resell the skins and have people double dip,” said user UnreasonableVbucks.
“I love the game, but I don’t believe this statement. Your going to make new skins for the game for the same characters, so just make every high tier skin in smite 2 and give it to players for free who bought it in smite 1? Like come on the tier 5s and 4s are gonna take you 200 years to port over? I don’t believe it,” said Eater4Meater.
While it’s unfortunate SMITE players won’t have access to their old skins, it seems Legacy Gems are the only way to reimburse longtime players, at least for the foreseeable future. SMITE 2 will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, and players can register for alpha test access on SMITE 2’s official website.
