SMITE World Championship Preview

The premiere event and finale of the 2016 seasons begins on Thursday, January 5th, in the form of the SMITE World Championship at Hi-Rez Expo, a convention featuring additional titles from gaming developer/publisher Hi-Rez Studios.

OVERVIEW

Teams from around the world will be competing at the Cobb Energy Center just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.  The biggest prize goes to the PC SMITE event, but there is also a Console SMITE tournament (XBox One) and the Paladins Invitational featuring 8 teams playing Hi-Rez’ first person shooter game.

The main event is the SMITE World Championship for PC, and it’s been a long road to make it to this point for all of the teams involved.

Check out our coverage of the qualifying matches for the two European teams and the North American squads:

SMITE Group Qualifying Recap

SMITE Super Regionals Recap

The main event now has an increased prize pool, up 24% from 2016’s tournament.  Hi-Rez President Stew Chisam revealed the new prize structure for PC SMITE players on Wednesday afternoon in a series of tweets:

After talking to players, have made a few adjustments to SWC PC Prizing structure. Both total prizing and prizing for #1 team above last yr. pic.twitter.com/mSHZzFH4L8

— HiRezStew (@schisam) January 4, 2017

VIEWING

The tournament will be broadcast on Twitch.tv from 11am EST, and fans in certain cities can also watch the event final on Sunday, January 8th at select movie theatres.

ESS will have regular updates live from the venue, so follow our Twitter account and YouTube for player interviews, post match press conferences and more!

PC MATCH SCHEDULE

Thursday, January 5th