Oh goody! Gems! My favourite!
Hi-Rez’s free-to-play MOBA Smite is now in closed beta on Xbox One. If you want it, you can sign up for it here. While being retooled to fit better with a controller, the game’s also had a few updates from its Xbox One alpha.
Most notable of these updates, the in-game marketplace has now been added, allowing players to buy new playable characters and costumes using gems. Gems are the game’s currency that you buy with your real cash, because just charging real money is absolutely unthinkable.
Also new is the Founder’s Pack: a way to buy in to the beta for $29.99/£20.99. The Founder’s Pack really makes it more of a semi-closed or slightly ajar beta than a closed one if you think about it. You get the beta access, every available character, every character that will be made available in the future, 400 gems, and two skins for Ares and Ymir. Fancy.
PC players, fear not. You will be able to do a one-time copy of your progress in the PC version over to the Xbox One version, and doing so will nab you a skin for Zeus in both versions.
Hi-Rez has been making free-to-play games for a while, but it’s really going full steam ahead with Smite, and that seems to be working out well for them. Remember Tribes Ascend? Yeah, neither does Hi-Rez, unfortunately.
