Hi-Rez, who some of us on staff haven't exactly forgiven for slowly dropping Tribes: Ascend way back when, has more or less proven that time is a flat circle by doing almost the exact same thing with its current games, Smite and Paladins.
That's as per both a message posted to Hi-Rez's eSports Discord, shared here by Smite pro Hayzer, and comments provided to Kotaku from the studio's president Stewart Chisam. The message, from an admin named Hinduman, reads: «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.
»We understand this may come as a disappointment to many of you, but know that Paladins has an incredibly special place in our hearts. We plan to keep the servers and currently available content running as long as possible to allow you to continue to enjoy the game."
Just for the sake of confirmation, I checked the official Paladins Discord server, too. Moderator PWNDotcom writes: «Active development of Paladins is being halted. No more major updates are expected, however the servers will remain online.»
Chisam would later confirm to Kotaku that around 70 people are being laid off. Over on the r/Smite subreddit, a list of impacted staff is being collected. This includes balance designers like Lexie «LermyWermy» Lerman, as well as eSports staff such as broadcast producer Billy Basikally. This isn't exactly the first time of trouble at Hi Rez, which appears to be shuffling all of its eggs into one basket.
In October last year, the studio laid off employees to ensure «long term success», while also announcing the closure of two games. Paladins, in particular, wasn't seeing many major updates, with the most recent champion, Omen, releasing in 2023. That's not to say there haven't been patches, mind—from what I can tell, the game's devs have mostly been focused on bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Which is a little sad in the rear view, improving
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Stewart Chisam