The battle royale/survival game Fortnite appears to be doing very well for itself, which is good news for developer Epic Games. It's not good for fans of Epic's free-to-play MOBA Paragon, however. In a very frank Reddit post, community coordinator Edgar Diaz acknowledged that updates to the game have slowed, in part because a number of Paragon developers have been shifted to Fortnite.
It's an understandable move, given the popularity of Fortnite, which Diaz said "has grown far larger than anything in Epic's past." But it also sounds as if Epic has been having doubts about the future of Paragon for awhile. It's not on Steam so it's impossible to get a measure of the current player count, but the fact that Epic hasn't been nearly as vocal about the Paragon numbers as it has with Fortnite is revealing.
"Going from Legacy to Monolith to a new card system and all of the changes in-between, our efforts have always been focused on growing the game. While each of these incarnations has been beloved by a core community, none has been large enough to achieve mainstream success," Diaz said. "This, combined with the humbling success of Fortnite has caused us to question if we have a good path to grow Paragon and make it thrive."
"The core challenge is that, of new players who try Paragon, only a small number continue to play regularly after a month. Though Paragon has evolved, no iteration has yet achieved that magical combination of ingredients that make for a sustainable game."
It's not a death knell for Paragon, and Diaz made a point of stating that "work on Paragon continues," and that the v45 update will go live this week. But it does very much come off as a warning that Paragon is on the bubble, and that those of you who are fans should brace yourselves for an unhappy ending.
"Over the next few weeks, we’ll be figuring out if and how we can evolve Paragon to achieve growth and success, and trying some things internally. In the meantime, Paragon’s release cadence will be slower," Diaz said. "We welcome your thoughts on what we should do. Like you, the team is deeply passionate about Paragon. Like you, we would love to find a path that works. And like the community at large, we are not all in agreement on what could place Paragon on a fundamentally better path for all."
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