Jormungandr: A Closer Look

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WHO IS JORMUNGANDR?

The World Serpent, said to be big enough to wrap his body around the entire earth, is a bringer of death and ender of days. It is said that when Ragnarok begins, he will awaken and cover the sky with toxic venom. He is a massive creature, with one primary goal: to destroy Gods.

OUR VISION

Jormungandr has a few defining features that are very important to his depiction and gameplay. First, his size. Early tests for this God were started over a year ago to prepare for how he would look in SMITE. His body type is unlike any other God and we did not want to compromise on this key feature at all. In SMITE, he will tower over all other Gods.

Theme – Massively Monstrous
Visuals – Largest God in the game, Unique body type anchored to the ground
Personality – Dutiful, Focused, Violent
Perspective – Viewed as a threat to the Gods' way of life

Jormungandr is the signal to the end of Ragnarok in SMITE. He will destroy the Gods or the Gods will defeat him, and Ragnarok will finally end. This battle has been building up over many chapters of SMITE's official lore. Thor has already clashed with the world Serpent and was on the brink of destruction before being rescued by his fellow Gods. Now, Merlin and King Arthur will be able to challenge Jormungandr bringing Ragnarok to an end in a way unique to the SMITE universe.

The visual direction for this God was quite clear from the start. He is a giant serpent. We strongly wanted to execute on this unique body type, and we implemented specific tech and design to make sure it was the case. Jormungandr will be shown in SMITE as a head and torso above the ground, with an assumedly infinite amount of serpent body continuing below ground.

Most of the early art iteration explored different head shapes, body markings, and fins or spine variations. We wanted to aim for something that had an intimidating dragon feel, with subtle aquatic features.

The final Jormungandr met all of our goals. He is visually distinct and true to his lore. His scale would be the main challenge. Finding the right size and shape to make him big but still playable within SMITE's rule set was no easy task. He had to have his scale adjusted more than once in later stages of development. This is something we usually avoid as it is complicated and risky, but our rigging, animation, and technical art teams knew the value of his size and put in the effort to make him as awesome as possible.

Jormungandr's Guardian kit revolves around his concept of size. His model, collision, and camera view are pushed to the absolute extreme for SMITE. He uses Khepri's sized hitbox, the largest hit area in the game, yet he is roughly 3 times taller than the current tallest Gods in the game.

This concept of scale and "world" were echoed throughout the kit. This translated into a heavy zone control kit. He has the ability to claim large areas of the Battleground with his presence and his venom. After deploying Toxic Clouds, he can interact with them in various ways using his other abilities. His body itself is often the weapon. His zone control kit is complimented by ambush viper-style movement abilities, which can be used as team fight engagement tools.

He is designed as an aggressive guardian and will likely flex between solo lane and duo lane, possibly even being able to jungle. This type of gameplay fits his visual depiction well, as he clearly deals magical damage through poison, does more fighting and less healing or protecting, and feels properly tanky to match his colossal size.

Jormungandr's unique gameplay features are:

Immovability as a passive. Jormungandr cannot be knocked up, knocked back, grabbed, pulled, banished, vortexed, or moved from the battleground in any way. Instead of being hit by these effects he has a weakness effect applied to him, slowing him and causing him to take more damage for a short duration.
A new type of basic attack– a persistent cone dragon breath based on a charge system. The longer he uses this attack the weaker it will get, and he will need to take time to recharge.
An intense scale. Tied for the largest hit area, and the tallest camera by far. Jormungandr can see the Battleground in a way unlike any other God. He does take up a lot of his own player's view, but his camera height and zoom are very different than any other God.
The first stealth Guardian. Jormungandr can submerge himself underground, sneaking up on unsuspecting enemies.
Anti stealth. While submerged, Jormungandr can feel vibrations of enemy Gods, revealing them to him even if they are stealthed or hiding behind walls.
Long duration deployables. Toxic Clouds can be used to zone enemies or can be consumed in a variety of ways to synergize and power up the World Serpent's other abilities.
A semi-global ultimate ability where Jormungandr grows to his true size and bounds across the world in true arching sea serpent fashion.

Jormungandr has been the single most requested God from the SMITE community for years, and he will not disappoint. His size and shape alone make him wildly unique and provide gameplay unlike any other God. His kit has a variety of new elements to allow him to play the guardian role successfully but with many twists on the standard strategy.

The pinnacle of Ragnarok is finally here. Jormungandr, The World Serpent, is prepared for the final battle– are you?