Hi-Rez now announces the closure of the servers for Smite Tactics (PC, PS4, Xbox One) or “Hand of the Gods.” This was supposed to expand and strengthen the “Smite” brand, but the mix of X-Com and Hearthstone was never really successful. In the last 30 days, Smite Tactics had an average of only 1.8 players on Steam.
What kind of game is Smite Tactics? It’s not that easy to describe. After the success of the action MOBA Smite, the studio, Hi-Rez, wanted to establish more games under this brand.
“Hand of the Gods: Smite Tactics” appeared at the end of 2016. It is a mix of strategy and card game. With the god worlds from SMITE, players can create decks like in a card game. However, they don’t just play these cards out; they place them on the game board.
As a strategist, they can then control these figures.
Simply too few players
What went wrong? The game simply couldn’t establish itself or really become known. There was no significant bloom phase; the game never took off.
Smite Tactics struggled to find its target audience and apparently had trouble explaining to people what they should expect in the game. However, Hi-Rez has done quite a bit to try to turn this around:
But that was unsuccessful. The average player counts on Steam have been catastrophic for a long time:
- At launch in September 2017, there were an average of 800 players
- By December 2017, it dropped to 67
- Since February 2019, the numbers have been in single digits.
- In the last 30 days, Smite Tactics had an average of 1.8 players on Steam.
First maintenance mode, now Hi-Rez pulls the plug
How did it all end? Already a year ago, Hi-Rez announced that they would not plan any further “major content” for Smite Tactics.
Now the news has come that the servers will close on January 1, 2020. Every player will receive 100,000 runes to enjoy the game while it lasts.
After that, it will no longer be playable.
Hi-Rez somehow can’t catch a trend
What’s behind it: Hi-Rez has tried to do more than just SMITE in recent years and has attempted to find the right horse with several games:
- Paladins is a hero shooter, it has always done quite well – but ultimately struggled to compete against Overwatch and then the trend was already over
- Realm Royale came in the Fortnite wave, but then it sank a bit – after a very short bloom period
- And Smite Tactics was supposed to be something innovative, but it didn’t work out either
Especially bitter: In 2019, the MOBAs Dota 2 and League of Legends developed their tactical spinoffs, Dota Underlords and Teamfight Tactics, and were extremely successful with them.
