SMITE to fold its Chinese players into the global community

Contrary to popular belief, sometimes server merges can be a very good thing — especially if your country or region has been kept isolated from others up to this point.

SMITE’s Chinese population is about to join up with the rest of the global community, thanks to a deal between Tencent and Hi-Rez. MMO Culture is reporting that the merge is scheduled for January 2018, after which the game will be truly global and have one shared rank ladder. Between now and then, no new players can register and veteran SMITErs are going to need to take some action to transfer their account over.

Tencent and Hi-Rez are also working on a possible deal to bring the studio’s Paladins over to China. The closed beta for Paladins has been running in that country for a while now.