Epic is shuttering ‘Paragon’ following success of ‘Fortnite’
Last week, an Epic Games representative explained Paragon‘s uncertain future on the game’s subreddit, which worried fans — especially as it confirmed that developers had been siphoned off to assist with the massively successful Fortnite. It turns out those apocalyptic concerns were correct: Paragon is getting shut down on April 26th. To make up for it, every player, on all platforms, can apply for a refund.
Paragon will close down on April 26, 2018. For more information, click here. https://t.co/sd5L7xy33c pic.twitter.com/1JTDAmyifB
— Paragon (@Paragon) January 26, 2018
“After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable,” Epic Games’ statement read. “We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you — despite the team’s incredibly hard work — and we’re sorry.”
Paragon was a surer bet two years ago when the studio, known for the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, announced they were making a third-person MOBA. The game arrived in March 2016 and got a dedicated but small playerbase, which it tried to expand by going free-to-play in early 2017. Despite those efforts, the game never became a big player in the eSports circuit.
Epic launched Fortnite shortly thereafter in July 2017, long after introducing the cartoony tower defense game in 2011 — but the studio shrewdly released a PUBG-like F2P Battle Royale mode months later that became wildly successful. Like, 45 million registered players and over 2 million on at the same time-level of successful. Sadly, Epic decided Paragon wasn’t worth keeping alive compared to those numbers — and (February 02, 2018)’s bet on a MOBA best-seller fell to the unexpected whirlwind success of the Battle Royale subgenre.
Players who want to apply for a refund can do so here.
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