Enlarge / Paragon sure can look cool, but in terms of gameplay, fans argue that updates have left something to be desired. (credit: Epic Games)
Epic Games’ Fortnite proved to be one of 2017’s weirdest gaming success stories. Following years of sluggish development and a half-baked “paid early access” launch in July, the game received a new, entirely free mode in an update for all PC and console versions. That mode, the incredibly PUBG-like Fortnite Battle Royale, has gone on to rack up millions of players (though exactly how many is unclear, since Epic still describes both the paid and free content as a combined number of over 40 million).
The mode’s success hasn’t left every Epic Games fan satisfied, however. On Tuesday, the company put an exclamation point on growing rumblings from fans of one of its other free-to-play products, the “action MOBA” game Paragon, by admitting that Fortnite BR‘s success may be Paragon‘s undoing.
Paragon’s last major content update, summarized in this video, came in September. A smaller update followed in November.
In a post at Paragon‘s official Reddit community, an unnamed Epic staffer admits that the game’s various updates since its 2016 “early access” launch have not driven “large enough” player growth. For the uninitiated, Paragon launched both as an Unreal Engine 4 showcase and as a take on games like Dota 2 and League of Legends, with a more active, behind-the-character camera angle (a formula seen in other recent F2P games, including Smite and Gigantic).
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Source: Ars Technica – Epic admits that Fortnite’s success may seal another F2P game’s fate