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The Hi-Rez Expo kicks off in the US today with the third season of the Smite World Championship being held at the event, and there is one team of Aussies looking to take it all.
The Expo is an annual gaming and Esports festival celebrating the fan communities of Hi-RezStudios, the makers of one of the biggest online MOBA’s of all time, SMITE, as well as Paladins.
The World Championships are certainly nothing to be scoffed at, with a prize pool of over $1.36 million and teams competing from all over the world.
Australia will have a team competing for the mammoth purse, with winners of the Oceania Championships last year, the LG Dire Wolves, taking centre stage.
They’ll be opening their account in the knockout tournament taking on European second seeds Team Obey for a chance to play on in one of the world’s biggest gaming tournaments.
The expo is also hosting a Paladin invitational, with a handy pocket of over $200,000 itself.
Abyss ESC also come into that tournament as reigning Oceania Champions and will represent Australia in the team-based shooter.
They’ll be kicking off their campaign with three matches on Saturday morning.
The rise and rise of esports as a truly global event has seen the popularity and contention of tournaments like these incline rapidly.
For Australian fans, there are viewing parties in Melbourne and Sydney throughout the tournament.
And of course, all the action will be streamed live on Twitch around the world, which you can catch here.
Not to leave the fans hungry though, Hi-Rez Studios has announced two new games for the SMITE universe during the Expo.
SMITE Rivals, is a CCA (Collectible Card Arena) game that has been announced free for PC and mobile devices.
The game has many of the same styles, heroes and similarities to Smite, but puts a different twist on the popular game.
“We want to create a game for our fans that is familiar, fast-paced, and engaging, but different from the MOBA experience we all know and love,” said Brian Grayson, Executive Producer of SMITE Rivals.
A big feature of the new game is the saved progression across devices. If you play and save your game on PC, then you’re able to load and play the very same game on a mobile or any other device.
SMITE Tactics is the other new platform for the Esports community to get around, with the game entering closed beta on PC.
It’s a turn-based, one-vs-one strategy game set in the same universe as the other Smite titles.