For a good chunk of time, Epic Games, the developers of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine, has a good thing going with their take of a MOBA, Paragon. It was launched as an open beta on PC and PS4 in 2016 and has been frequently updated with new heroes, tweaks, reworks and even a major graphical overhaul to coincide the launch of the PS4 Pro.
On April 26th 2018, Paragon is shutting down.
“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,” the statement reads on Epic’s website.
“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.”
While the game is free-to-play, it offered various micro-transactions. Epic is doing something generous to soften the blow of the announcement by offering a full refund to every purchase, both on PC and PS4. The statement also includes the procedures to request for one.
Recently, Epic reached a major milestone for its latest free-to-play venture, Fortnite Battle Royale. It has garnered more than 45 million players, with 2 million concurrent users, not far off from the biggest battle royale game right now, PUBG.
With this success, the developers has candidly mentioned that priorities within the studio is now on Fortnite, with various staff on Paragon shifting to the its biggest title right now. Development has slowed down and now has come to a halt.
While there are many MOBA is a very popular genre, it is still hard to be successful unless it’s Dota 2 or League Of Legends. It’s a shame Epic could not prove this to be wrong, but we applaud the efforts to provide the full refund.