Epic shuttered Paragon, but now it’s back
Paragon, the abandoned MOBA from Epic Games which ceased development to allow Epic to focus on Fortnite, is back – albeit by a different developer.
Paragon: The Overprime is a revival of the original game, and despite South Korean-based Netmarble using the naming and branding, Epic Games isn’t involved. This is a third-party effort, and as announced on Steam(opens in new tab) (via PC Gamer(opens in new tab)), it’s currently holding what it’s calling ‘the Final Test’.
This test is running from now until November 7th and will let players experience what the developer has been cooking up before it eventually lands in Early Access. This will allow players to try the game and see if it lives up to the original Paragon(opens in new tab) name.
But how exactly is a South Korean developer reviving the game without the help of Epic Games? Interestingly, when Paragon was shut down in 2018(opens in new tab) so the development team could focus on the exploding popularity of Fortnite, the mega-developer decided to release $12 million worth of assets(opens in new tab). Epic allows developers to use these assets to make games and profit from them. Netmarble is taking that and trying to pick up right where the previous development team left off.
Interestingly, this isn’t the only project like this. This is now the third major effort to revive Paragon with these assets, as both Fault: Elder Orb(opens in new tab) and the upcoming Predecessor(opens in new tab) are both revival efforts that have been gaining traction. This is the first effort to use the Paragon branding though. It’s not clear if that’s a blessing given to the project by Epic Games (we have reached out for comment), but the game is going to be available on the Epic Games Store(opens in new tab) (as well as Steam), so it hasn’t run into any issues thus far from the publisher.
The continued story of Paragon since its death has been fascinating and this looks to be a serious new effort to try and finally make this property work. It really would be cool to see the title find its legs and become what Paragon always promised it could be.
