2016 SMITE World Championship begins, new mobile game and more coming

With the start of the 2016 SMITE World Championship (ends on Sunday, January 10), times are exciting for Hi-Rez Studios and all fans of their games. There are plenty of updates coming to SMITE with the Season 3, with the highlight being the introduction of the Japanese Pantheon, starting January 12 on PC and late February on Xbox One. Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun, will be the first of these new playable characters based on Japanese mythology. SMITE will also feature a 3v3 Joust League and a new 3v3 Joust map, a Chinese-themed environment based on the sky palace from the famous Sun Wukong legend.

Hi-Rez Studios has officially launched its first mobile game, Jetpack Fighter, a “swipe-to-attack, high-speed platformer with gear progression.” There's a bit of cross-promotion going on, with one of the Jetpack Fighter’s heroines, Leona, appearing as an alternate skin for the goddess Nemesis, and Nemesis will be a playable character in Jetpack Fighter. This game is available today in all English-speaking territories as a free-to-download title on select iOS devices via the App Store; additional markets will follow in the coming months.

Grover, the treant of SMITE’s Sylvanus, will be the next playable Champion to join Paladins: Champions of the Realm, the free-to-play first-person shooter that is currently in closed beta on PC. The first official Paladins tournament is expected this spring with a prize pool of $100,000.

You can watch the SWC at www.twitch.tv/smitegame.