‘SMITE’ Xbox One Beta Sign-Ups Arrive With Nifty Trailer, Playable At Championship This Weekend

Hi-Rez Studios’ free-to-play third-person MOBA, SMITE, is making the jump from the PC to the Xbox One this year. The beta will be comes first ahead of official release, though, and the developer made sign-ups available Tuesday. It also released a CGI trailer for the game featuring a handful of mythical gods battling for supremacy. At the same time, Hi-Rez is gearing up for its first world championship for the PC game in Atlanta with a $2.5 million prize pool.

The SMITE Xbox One beta does not have a release date yet, but you can go ahead and register for it by simply providing your email address at the game’s website. Hi-Rez says that they will send out “a limited quantity of beta invites in the coming months. These will be distributed randomly among all registered players, and registration does not guarantee participation.”

The new trailer is a first for SMITE. It is a completely pre-rendered and done in the style of Blizzard trailers for World of Warcraft and other titles. Fenrir, Thor, Neith, and Guan Yu all battle for supremacy until Ymir crashes the party.

For those unfamiliar with SMITE, the premise is similar to leading MOBAs such as Dota 2 and League of Legends. The game features multiple pantheons of gods and deities based on Norse, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian, Roman, and Mayan mythologies, as well as the Hindu religion.

The primary difference between SMITE and competing MOBAs is also the reason the game will work on consoles. It utilizes a third-person, over the shoulder camera versus the top-down camera in Dota 2 and League of Legends. It is heavy on the action, and already set up to support Xbox controllers on the PC. I can’t necessarily advise using the controller during a competitive PC match, however.

It also supports six different game modes, including a traditional three-lane conquest mode and a non-traditional Arena mode. There are also practice modes to help players get started with the action.

Hi-Rez is hosting the SMITE World Championship from Friday, January 9 to Sunday, January 12 at the Cobb Performance Center in Atlanta, GA. Hi-Rez Studios crowd-sourced the prize pool for the tournament, and it currently stands at $2.55 million. That’s larger than the $2 million League of Legends tournament. Standard tickets are still available for the event, or you can purchase a Digital Pass to watch via Twitch. Those that are able to attend will be able to try out SMITE on the Xbox One.

What do you think of SMITE on the Xbox One? Will a third-person MOBA work on consoles? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images via Hi-Rez Studios]