Ever wondered how it felt like to become an overlord of the Gods? Then perhaps the relatively newcomer in the multiplayer online battle arena field (MOBA), "Smite," would just do the trick.
Smite was created as a free-to-play MOBA developed by Hi-Rez Studios released on March 25th, 2014. The game enabled players to control a variety of "gods," which could be mythological beings, immortals or characters of legend originating from various cultures across the globe. The game characters would also possess various powers and upgrades.
However, players saw the third-person perspective rather than the common top-down mode as the major highlight of the game. It was also this play mode that made the game fit for game console release. With the players seeing their game pieces battling it out using powers to overwhelm their opponents, the game would inevitably enthrall a player who lived by the motto, take no prisoners.
The game also boasted a growing fans base with a world championship that held the largest prizepool in eSports to date, amounting to $2.5 million. Even the fans would wouldn't fight on the tourney were encourage to watch what happened inside the arena.
The controls would also be something to get used. However, this did not stop Microsoft from eyeing the PC game and packaging it with Xbox One, which would be set on release around mid-2015. Bigwigs were keying in at the prospect of having eSports integrated to the XBox version of Smite. As Hi-Rez' Xbox producer Andy Anderson put it point blank in an interview, "they wanted eSports," and everything they did in the development of the game for the console had that as its core objective. Although Anderson also admitted that a market for the new Smite would also dictate where to game would be heading, whether it would be overpowered by competition or it would smite its rivals.
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