A new game mode for SMITE, named "Clash", has been announced by Hi-Rez and it will be playable for a limited time on the Public Test Servers. The new map will be a middle ground between arena and conquest. It will be a 5v5 mode with two lanes that joins in the middle, encouraging team fights, aggressive play and lane pushing.
The map is still in an early stage of development and should not be considered final by any means. A lot of balancing will likely take place, especially in the positioning of the big neutral monsters (Fire Giant and Gold Fury) relatively to the spawn points. Talking of neutral monsters, the map will have one mana buff camp at each side, one exp camp at each side and one single damage buff in the middle of the field, where the two lanes join. This means that minute 0 teamfights will be the rule rather than the exception.
Clash sits in a weird spot in SMITE. It's not a free for all like Arena while at the same time not having the strategic depth of Conquest. It takes a little from both, but allows more experimentation and room for error. At the end of the day it should not be considered a "serious" mode. Don't expect to see it in league anytime soon.
We don't have a release date for Clash as of now. It will be avaible in the PTS for a limited time and we know for sure that it will NOT be included in the next patch. The developers aim to gather as much feedback as possible in order to make the map as fun and possibly balanced as they can before releasing it to all the players.
What you think of this new mode? Do you think there's much room for experimentation between Conquest and Arena? Will you play it in the PTS? Let us know in the comments.
