Smite's Official PS4 Launch Comes Later This Month

Smite will leave beta on PlayStation 4 and officially launch on May 31, developer Hi-Rez Studios announced today.

Originally available as a closed alpha, all PS4 owners were free to download the open beta that's been going on for the past few months. As when the Xbox One version left beta, this is more of a milestone for Hi-Rez than it is a big change for players, but it does signal this version is stable enough to warrant an official release.

Hi-Rez says on the PlayStation Blog that "millions" of people have tried Smite's beta on PS4. Some significant additions and changes were made during the test, including a framerate increase to 60 FPS (making it dramatically smoother to play), a number of characters (like the supremely fun assassin Susano), and Trophy support.

When Smite left beta on Xbox One, the Founder's Pack stopped being sold. It was replaced by the Ultimate God Pack, which offered the same main feature--access to all current and future characters--but without some bonuses. That'll again be the case on PS4, Hi-Rez confirmed to GameSpot. An exact date for the change hasn't been decided, but you should act soon if you want the Founder's Pack, whose bonuses include a pair of skins and some gems (the premium in-game currency).

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Smite is a MOBA not entirely unlike League of Legends or Dota 2, but it's played from the perspective of a third-person action game (like Epic's new game Paragon). It has a few game modes that do a good job of introducing players to the genre: Arena is like a slightly more involved version of team deathmatch that is good for learning the basic mechanics; Joust, Siege, and Clash ease players into the lane-based aspects of its standard MOBA mode, Conquest. If you're looking to learn the genre on consoles, where Heroes of the Storm isn't an option, it's as good an option as you've got