There are plenty of games that share the space of giants in their genre without ever being noticed that, somehow, still find success. For MMORPGs, the likes of The Lord of the Rings Online and DC Universe Online are still going strong a decade later. While MOBAs are a bit of a harder sell–and almost all competition in that space is gone, save for the big two in League of Legends and DOTA 2–there are a few still kicking, such as Smite. The god-brawling, lane-based multiplayer game may not be the most visibly recognizable esport title out there but that doesn’t mean it isn’t doing cool things in the meantime. A new, major player in the god space is coming to fight as Cthulhu–yes, that Cthulhu–joins the Smite god roster in June, bringing along a suite of eldritch abilities straight from the source material and can literally become the biggest god around. H.P. Lovecraft impersonators everywhere rejoice, your chance to stream on Twitch while in-character is here.
So, you may be saying to yourself, “Hey Will! I wasn’t allowed to read anything in high school but Nicholas Sparks books about how the love of Christ brings weepy teenagers together. Who is this Cthulhu mans and why would I want to play as him?” First: No judgment, as one of my favorite movies is literally an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book. Secondly, and according to the community blog post over at PlayStation, Cthulhu is “the Great Dreamer and the High Priest of the Great Old Ones. He is the gateway to a set of cosmic entities with unfathomable power. They have existed for aeons, likely coming into being before our currently known universe. Even as Cthulhu sleeps in the underwater prison of R’yleh, his power seeps into every shred of life on Earth, causing discomfort and despair. He will soon awaken, and the gods of Smite will be tested like never before.”
What does this mean from a gameplay perspective? Expect Big Green to be all about madness, spreading corruption, and using it to “break” other gods and bolster its own power in kind. The second, more interesting power from Cthulhu is his ultimate attack that will see him grow to sizes unseen in Smite to this point, literally becoming the biggest character in the game. He is already by default one of the biggest in the game, as the post describes: “Cthulhu is in a distinctly unique size range that is larger than all the usual gods, but not as tall as Jormungandr.”
Cthulhu makes his way to Smite sometime in June. In theory, he’s so big that we’ll just, you know… see him coming.
