After four months of paid early access, the shocking MOBA “Smite 2” will open for free next week. Early bird “founders” willing to spend some money have been able to play this game of omniscient gods fighting for lanes and minions since last September (it’s also had a number of closed alpha versions since May), but now It’s finally open to the rest of us mere mortals. It also introduces a new “god”, Aladdin, the thief with a genie.

Developer Hi-Rez said in a Steam post that the game will be free to play starting on January 14th. There will be 45 playable gods, including the newly added thief from One Thousand and One Nights. Aladdin can trap enemy players in his lamp, where they must fight the thief and his genie (you can read more about his abilities here if you’d like). Other characters added in the free update include Mulan, Geb, Urla and Agni – all returning gods from the original SMITE.

The usual multi-lane conquest mode will cause a lot of team chaos. But it will also add some additional game modes. For example, Joust is a 3v3 single lane mode, while Duel mode is a one-on-one scenario. Assault mode also returns from the previous game, “similar to regular Conquest mode, but with single lanes and no jungle.”

For lack of SMITE wisdom, we’re placing free offerings at the shrine of Matt Cox (RPS for Peace), who used his early access SMITE 2 review Blessed us. He sees no problem with that, but points out that the supreme beings in the Hi-Rez pantheon have to compete with the flexible and exciting heroes in Valve Deadlock. This comparison doesn’t make people like Thor seem as divine as they think they are.

I didn’t spend a second wishing I wasn’t playing deadlock. The timing of Hi-Rez, Valve’s third-person MOBA shooter, is so unfortunate that I can’t help but think about how it innovates where SMITE left off. SMITE positions itself as a MOBA, where every shot is a skill shot, while Deadlock is a MOBA, where every shot is an actual shot, combined with dashing, dodging, jumping, and power sliding.

My friends, the world of MOBAs is truly amazing. Meanwhile, Hi-Rez isn’t shutting down SMITE 1, they say, but their attention has shifted to a sequel. In October, the company laid off some employees, leaving only a small team to work on “minor updates” for SMITE 1 and Paladins.