Smite and Paladins dead as Hi-Rez lays off dozens of employees
Hi-Rez StudiosAs a result of mass layoffs affecting several parts of Hi-Rez Studios and subsidiary companies Titan Forge, Rally Here and Evil Mojo games, development on both Paladins and Smite has completely ceased.
While these titles will still be alive for the foreseeable future and they’re keeping servers up, both games will no longer receive any content updates, even including minor bugfixes. Both games won’t be touched by developers ever again and are, for all intents and purposes, dead.
With Hi-Rez having shut down a number of games over the past decade, from Rogue Company and Prophecy to Divine Knockout and Realm Royale, many of their big bets in the multiplayer space haven’t paid off even if they showed promise.
However, Smite and (to a lesser extent) Paladins were the two main games the company was known for. These live service multiplayer games held a dedicated enough playerbase to keep the company afloat and relevant, even in the highly competitive multiplayer market.
However, as a result of Smite 2’s troubled development and Hi-Rez’s efforts to stay alive through bringing that game out of beta and into a finished state, a massive round of layoffs have effectively killed every other game from the company.
Smite 2 in peril as Hi-Rez makes significant job cuts
Layoffs within Hi-Rez’s conglomerate of studios have resulted in Smite and Paladins both being put on what is referred to as “maintenance mode,” which is an effort to preserve the game in its current form and keep servers alive for as long as they can.
The first Smite, despite being over a decade old, was still in active development. With Smite 2’s beta being a bit rough around the edges, many players still preferred Smite 1 and chose to stick with that game, instead.
Paladins, while not releasing content nearly as often as it did in its heyday, still got new characters, balance updates and maps a few times a year. With this announcement, development has also ceased on one of the only hero shooters that ever managed to hold a candle to Overwatch before Marvel Rivals came along.
Hi-Rez Studios“Smite 1, Paladins and Rogue Company servers will remain available for the foreseeable future, but no further major updates are currently planned for these games,” a Hi-Rez representative explained in a public Discord message.
“Smite 2 will continue to be the focus of the newly streamlined operations. These reductions should enable a steady flow of new content and the continued development of Smite 2, while aligning team costs with revenues.”
But these layoffs didn’t just affect those working on Hi-Rez’s older games; Smite 2 saw major layoffs, as well.
From core game designers who have been working at the company for almost a decade to UI/UX artists, programmers, marketing and everything in-between; almost every part of Hi-Rez has been affected in some way.
The full scope of these layoffs isn’t clear, though Smite content creator and broadcast talent Hayzer claims 50-60 employees have been laid off between this round of layoffs and the last one – around half the company.
“The people in charge have f**ked it,” Hayzer remarked. “It’s normal people, normal folk who put their life into making a great game and a great esports product who pay the price.”
However, the esports scene isn’t dead just yet, despite many of these cuts being focused on the esports segment of the company.
“As changes within the company continue to unfold, we want to reaffirm our ongoing commitment to the future of competitive Smite 2,” explained Hi-Rez esports lead Hinduman.
“The structure of competition will evolve from what players and fans may have been accustomed to throughout Smite’s history, but organized competitive play will remain a high priority, and cash prizing will be provided by Hi-Rez.”
These layoffs come hot off the heels of Smite 2’s very first competitive LAN event, one that took place in Las Vegas and had a $300k prize pool. It is worth mentioning, however, that Smite’s esports website is no longer working at the time of writing, and pages from mere weeks ago have been pulled.
CEO Stewart Chisam has come under fire in all this, partially because he deleted his Twitter account days before this wave of layoffs was announced.
“It is both tragic and unsurprising that Stew still stands today as a glaring testament of ineptitude. He seems endlessly enchanted with his own incompetence, like a blindfolded captain steering a ship,” Smite pro fineokay tweeted, calling the CEO a “bumbling corporate clown.”
Former Hi-Rez higher-up Chris Larson also remarked that he wishes he was “listened to a few years ago” in regards to the direction in which things went at the company, though didn’t extrapolate upon what exactly he was referring to.
Other developers have tried to stay positive, with Clumzy, a crucial part of Smite 2’s design team, expressing that he has survivor’s guilt as a result of all this.
With Hi-Rez ceasing active development in every game other than Smite 2, they’re putting all their eggs into one basket with these layoffs and putting all their faith in that game to succeed.