Epic’s Paragon to Shut down This Spring

Paragon didn’t last very long.

Do any of you even remember Paragon? It’s actually a pretty decent MOBA that was developed and published by Epic Games. Since its developers used Unreal Engine 4, the game has impressive graphics, but it looks like this isn’t enough to keep it afloat. Paragon entered its Open Beta phase in February last year, and now, it’s going to shut down for good on April 26 this year. We’re not exactly sure what happened there, as the game was reportedly doing well. Epic even said that Paragon had 44% more players playing each week at some point. Apparently, the MOBA niche is quite saturated, which caused Paragon to be unsustainable in the long run.

What about players who purchased in-game items?

The good news is that everyone will receive refunds no matter the platform. Moreover, these refunds will come straight from Epic and not from the users’ platform providers. Here’s Epic’s official statement (and excuse) on the matter:

“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. 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.”

I admit that I haven’t tried out Paragon for myself. But I wanted to, quite a few times. Maybe the game wasn’t marketed properly, or maybe it just didn’t have enough content to keep people engaged. Some might say that it failed because it didn’t have a story, but there are plenty of successful games out there that don’t have stories and are doing quite well. The MOBA scene is not exactly story-driven anyway.

Whatever the reason, this title died off much sooner than everyone expected. Hopefully, Epic will learn from its mistakes and will create something even more incredible in its place.