By Sagar V. Mankar 
Hi-Rez Studios has ended development on both Smite and Paladins, two of its most successful multiplayer games, following significant layoffs across the company and its subsidiary studios. While the servers will remain operational, players will no longer receive content updates or bug fixes for either game.
The company has laid off 69 employees out of its total workforce of 144, representing nearly half of its staff. These cuts have affected various departments, including core game designers, UI/UX artists, programmers, and marketing teams at Hi-Rez Studios and its subsidiaries Titan Forge, Rally Here, and Evil Mojo Games.
According to a Hi-Rez representative’s message on Discord (via Insider Gaming), the company will now focus entirely on developing Smite 2, which is currently in beta. “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,” the representative stated.
The timing of these layoffs is particularly notable as they come shortly after Smite 2’s first competitive LAN event in Las Vegas, which featured a $300,000 prize pool. Despite the cuts affecting the esports division, Hinduman, Hi-Rez’s esports lead, has confirmed that competitive play will continue for Smite 2, albeit with a “different structure” than fans are accustomed to.
This latest round of layoffs follows a previous reduction in workforce from October 2024, where Chisam had acknowledged his leadership failures. These cuts add to a concerning trend in the gaming industry, with over 800 people losing their jobs across 26 companies in the first six weeks of 2025 alone as per obsidian.md.
For Hi-Rez Studios, this represents a significant shift in strategy. The company, which has previously shut down several games including Rogue Company, Prophecy, Divine Knockout, and Realm Royale, is now placing all its hopes on the success of Smite 2. The original Smite, despite being over a decade old, maintained an active player base who preferred it over the beta version of its successor.
This development marks the end of an era for Paladins as well, which had established itself as one of the few successful competitors to Overwatch in the hero shooter genre. The game, while not as frequently updated as in its peak years, had continued to receive new characters, balance updates, and maps until this announcement.