Peek At Paladins, The Next F2P FPS From Smite Devs

Y'seen those folks behind Tribes: Ascend and Smite are working on a new free-to-play FPS, right? After showings at shows, Hi-Rez Studios are now ready to show Paladins [official site] to those of us who didn't schlep ourselves to shows to see the showings. Show. Show? Showww.

Which is to say Hi-Rez have dropped a trailer showing bits of gameplay alongside scenes of people using computers and people wearing their smartest casual clothes talking about the game. Observe:

The key sentence in all that is: "The objective of Paladins is a combination of a point capture system and an escort siege push." That's what the game's dealio is. Along with tech-o-fantasy weapons, its characters have special abilities, and a collectible card... thing adds another layer.

Cards in Paladin give passive power-ups like bonus damage, attack speed, or regeneration, and throughout battles you'll draw new cards from the deck you've built. I think. Something like that. The point is: cards.

Paladins (which may or may not officially have the generic subtitle Champions of the Realm) is due to launch initially in some of early access later this year.

In the meantime, Hi-Rez have actually gone back and revisited Tribes a little. A new patch - the first in over two years - recently entered public testing.