Smite World Championship Winning Team Picks up $500,000

Hi-Rez Studios has wrapped up the final day of its competitive event, the Smite World Championship 2016. Competitive European gaming team Epsilon eSports swept through the grand final of the PC tournament 3-0, earning first place and a prize of $500,000. Second place was awarded to Enemy, an American esports team, who received $230,000. In third and fourth place were teams Cloud9 and Paradigm respectively, picking up $75,000 for their efforts.

The Smite World Championship 2016 ran from January 7-10 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta and saw teams from North America, Europe, China, Oceania, Brazil and Latin America participate. The event had a prize pool of $1 million for the PC version of the game, while the Xbox One Invitational had a prize pool of $150,000.

The event marks the second of its kind, following on after Hi-Rez hosted the Smite World Championship at the same location in 2015. Smite was first released on PC as a free-to-play game in March 2014. It was launched on Xbox One on a free-to-play model in August 2015.

Hi-Rez Studios allocated a total prize pool of $2.5 million over the course of the year through multiple events, including the SWC. The spread of the pool allows the competitive Smite scene to provide a more sustainable income for professional players.

To mark the launch of this year's Smite World Championship, Hi-Rez announced a new Character, map, and Japanese pantheon, in addition to other changes that would be coming to the game--more details available here.