The end of last year spelled the official death knell for Realm Royale Reforged and Divine Knockout as Hi-Rez Studios confirmed both games would sunset on February 17th, and now those closures have officially come to pass.
Both announcements are short and curt, reaffirming that servers for both titles have gone dark and thanking remaining players for their support. The DKO announcement didn’t even get a title, adding an arguable extra layer of ignominy to the news.
Readers will remember that these closures came as part of a wider contraction across Hi-Rez, which saw two rounds of layoffs and the end of support for the original SMITE on Nintendo Switch. The layoffs have both been associated with keeping SMITE 2 supported, leaving dozens of developers in the lurch while CEO Stewart Chisham still has his job.
On the same day that both titles completed their sunset, SMITE 2 introduced Achilles to its roster, outlining how the warrior has been “reimagined for SMITE 2” with familiar mechanics and deadly abilities. The patch has also made a couple of smaller changes that fixed bugs with console player abilities and a gamepad button.
