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.

"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 yesterday'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.