While OG players will get rewarded, Smite cosmetics will not carry over into Smite 2
Instead, all new skins from here on out will be cross-game cosmetics.
Smite 2 has just been announced at the Smite World Championships - and with it the news that all your old Smite 1 cosmetics will not be transfering over. It's not all bad news, as longtime players will be rewarded in other ways.
The reason given for this lack of carry-over between the two games is the workload required. These things don't transition over cleanly between Unreal Engine 3 (which Smite 1 is built upon) and Smite 2's new Unreal Engine 5 engine. As it would apparently take two months for a single skin to get transfered over in the quality Titanforged wants, they've opted to start clean.
OG players shouldn't get too upset quite yet though, as they'll still be rewarded in two major ways. The first are Legacy Gems. For every gem you've spent in Smite 1, you'll get a Legacy Gem in Smite 2. These Legacy gems can be spent on "the majortity" of Smite 2 cosmetics, but only on up to 50% of the price. So if a skin costs 100 gems, you'll only be able to spend 50 Legacy gems on it.
Legacy Gems are basically a 50% discount for those with a history of Smite spending. It means that you'll still have to spend money for new stuff in Smite 1, but significantly less than the new wave of players.
Then there's Divine Legacy. This is a series of limited-time objectives that'll unlock various special cosmetics based on your achievements over the years - like your god smite mastery level. If you're purely interested in Smite 1, you'll also be able to pick from a selection of tier 5 skins through Divine Legacy.
It's also mentioned that players starting right now will be able to unlock these Divine Legacy rewards, so it's not exactly clear just how much is truly unique for those age-old Smite players. We can see that several Divine Legacy player icons display Smite 1 god mastery levels on them, so maybe it'll purely be a big number to flex on people on.
It's a tricky situation this, and one that's impossible to attempt without rubbing people the wrong way. Thanks to the difference between Smite 1 and Smite 2 it looks as though they have little choice but to leave a bunch of stuff behind, but nonetheless those with lots of time and money sunk into the original may feel sore. Especially when they look at how CS2 and Overwatch 2 handled it.
But then again, those two games literally dumped the original games in the gutter with the launch of the new version. Smite 1 will continue to be supported into the future, so it's not like your stuff is vanihsing into the void.
Let us know what you think of this. A good compromise, or a day one black mark against Smite 2?
(VG247's travel to Arlington Texas as well as accommodation for the Smite World Championships 2024 was paid for by Hi-Rez Studios.)