Finally, Epics Games has admitted the inevitable. The free-to-play Paragon is closing down soon, as the game studio conceded there's no further growth path for the MOBA.
The game developer announced this week Paragon is scheduled to conclude its run late April, effectively confirming the speculations that the F2P has been marked for an eventual shutdown. Earlier, Epic Games revealed internal difficulties slowed down the game's progress, and among them is the redeployment of Paragon team members to help out in running the more popular Fortnite Battle Royale.
The company said Fortnite has already clocked 40 million downloads, while Paragon's fanbase consistently slid down. In providing the data, the studio appeared to hint that the decision has been made — it intends to pull the plug on the MOBA.
"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 Paragon team said in a statement.
At the same time, the team confessed the efforts made to grow Paragon proved insufficient.
"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," the statement added.
Inescapable Demise
Speculations are rife, though, that Paragon is getting axed not entirely because the game was plagued by insurmountable struggles. The MOBA became a victim of another Epic Games' creation. Fortnite turned out more profitable in levels that exceeded the company's expectations, so the company did the expected: it trained the spotlight on the cash cow.
It came as no surprise then that Paragon was fated to bleed. As Fortnite continues to draw in gamers by the millions, Epic Games reallocated resources and talents from existing projects and poured them on rising game. Paragon bore the brunt of the decision that at some point, developers working on the game have been whittled down to fewer than a dozen.
It was only a matter of time for Paragon to reach the end of the road, and as confirmed by its creator, that will happen April 26, or mere three months away.
Making Things Right
As its way of saying sorry, though, Epic Games said there will be full refunds for all Paragon players, indicating that payments will come directly from the game studio. On this, fans will only need to initiate the process, the instructions for which can be found on the links contained on the Paragon team's official statement on the matter.
Lastly, the team advised that while the game will continue running until April, "matchmaking times and quality will further degrade," as the number of players are expected to thin out prior to closing time.
