Epic Games announced recently that they would be closing down Paragon, their MOBA/hero shooter hybrid that launched a few years ago, and failed to make much of a mark on the market. They also announced that they would be handling the closure gracefully, refunding all players as well.

But there’s more- with them no longer having any plans for Paragon, Epic Games have decided to release $12 million worth of game assets from the title for absolutely free, for use in Unreal Engine 4. Which basically means, if you are using Unreal Engine 4, you can sue those Paragon assets in your own game for absolutely free, no strings attached. That’s… a great move, and should prompt more aspiring developers to look into Unreal Engine 4. It’s also a great use of the assets for the title, which would otherwise go to waste.

Paragon was available on PS4 and PC; with Epic now custodians of Fortnite, currently the world’s biggest game (and available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC), this is a move they can afford to make- and I am glad they have chosen to do so.

Epic Games releases $12 million worth of Paragon assets for free –
https://t.co/kCXloctBJT #UE4 pic.twitter.com/K5paDNv41S

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) March 19, 2018

Epic Games has officially announced that its action MOBA Paragon will be shutting down on April 26th. The developer came to this decision 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.”

To compensate players for their time and dedication, Epic Games has announced a full refund for “every purchase on any platform.” Don’t worry about the issues that come from refunding on PS4 – refunds will come directly from Epic. Non-PC players will need to link or create an Epic account while PC players can request refunds here if they’ve already linked their accounts.

Servers will remain operational until closure though the developer warns that matchmaking times and quality will go down as the player population falls.

Epic Games indicated over the past few weeks with the success of Fortnite: Battle Royale and lack of interest in Paragon that the former may be shut down. Considering most of the development team had shifted to working on Fortnite, it seemed like a foregone conclusion. What are your thoughts on Paragon being shut down? Let us know below.

Another new character is coming to Epic Games’ Paragon and this time is Drongo. The ranged hero has a definite Mad Max vibe and the announcement trailer below showcases some of the mayhem he’s capable of when he arrives on August 29th.

Drongo’s first ability is Rad Rounds, which are bullets that can radiation debuffs on enemies. His second ability Old Rusty sees Drongo hurling a boomerang at foes, hurting and slow them with a chance to hit twice.

Gag Grenade is a tear gas grenade that can create a silence field, perfect for preventing other heroes from using their abilities. Then there’s his Ultimate called Shrapnel Cannon, which deals large amounts of damage, knocks back enemies and also destroys armour. The impact of it causes Drongo to get knocked back so it kind of doubles up as an escape tool.

Paragon will add Drongo this coming Tuesday for PS4 and PC. The game is currently free to play on both platforms and received a massive rework to its gameplay systems which you can read more about here.

Epic Games’ action MOBA Paragon has received its biggest update till date with The New Dawn. Not only has gameplay sped up thanks to faster attack speed and reduced cooldown for all heroes but heroes, towers and minions now have new stat attributes as their baseline.

Some of the newer additions include a revamped card system which brings 100 new cards with different abilities and a Gem system for strengthening different stats. The idea is to offer more variety to players, which is further seen in Affinities being tied to decks rather than heroes. This means that any deck can be used with any hero. If that weren’t enough, cards can be leveled up with dupes and utilized in co-op and solo vs. AI modes.

In addition to all of this, many heroes have received a series of buffs and nerfs. The biggest change comes with Iggy and Scorch who’ve been revamped to have new turrets, new attacks and a new Ultimate.

Paragon is currently free to play on PS4 and PC with new heroes added every few weeks. Check out the patch notes for the update below with more information offered here.

GRUX BOX BANNER EVENT

• Complete matches in any game mode between August 8 and August 21
• 10 total matches unlock the Grux Box Banner
• 25 total matches unlock the Deluxe Grux Box Banner

HEROES

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Cryoseism
    • Damage from this ability did not show in the death screen damage recap
      • Cryoseism will now display damage numbers in the death screen damage recap

GRUX

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Minor visual improvements to the Magma Scarab Grux skin

IGGY & SCORCH

• Mecha Terror Iggy & Scorch skin available August 8 in the in-game store

KALLARI

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Kallari’s cape would clip through her model when performing the Cutthroat emote while wearing any Rogue Kallari skin
    • Corrected this issue
• Shadow Walk
  • “Cheat Death” passive effect removed
  • The cooldown timer for this ability now begins once she exits the shadowplane
    • Previously, the cooldown timer begun as soon as she activated the ability

KWANG

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Kwang’s jumping/falling animation was broken, yet unintentionally hilarious while his sword was out in the world
    • We know this was a funny one, but we corrected the issue causing this animation to break
  • Gift of the Heavens
    • Lifesteal aura now only grants health on basic attacks
      • No longer grants health based on ability damage

LT. BELICA

• Neural Disruptor
  • ​​​​​​​Belica’s Neural Disruptor no longer scales with power.

MORIGESH

• Hive
  • Now has the same damage over time duration on all targets and only slows the marked target

NARBASH

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Audio added to the “Narbash’s Moment” store emote

RAMPAGE

• King of the Jungle – Reworked
  • Passive:
    • Rampage regenerates a % of his max health every second while in the jungle
  • Active:
    • Rampage’s basic attacks gain increased damage based on his current health for a short duration
• Enraged – Reworked
  • Rampage grows larger, empowering all his abilities for a duration
    • Boulder Throw becomes instant cast
    • King of the Jungle regen is multiplied by 4x and activates outside of the jungle
    • Pounce distance is increased

REVENANT

• Hellfire Rounds
  • Now deals % bonus basic damage instead of additional ability damage

RIKTOR

• Shocking Punch
  • Now triggers a punch (with a new animation) when activated instead of amplifying Riktor’s next basic attack.

SERATH

• Heresy
  • Serath’s weakness debuff previously only applied to base damage
    • Serath’s weakness debuff now affects all damage
  • Bonus damage is now % bonus basic damage instead of additional ability damage

SEVAROG

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Phantom Rush
    • Sevarog now exits the shadow plane after using the Phantom Rush ability

TWINBLAST

• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Minor visual improvements made to the Summer Fun Twinblast skin

WUKONG

• 84,000 Hairs
  • Clones deal 75% reduced damage to structures

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS

ECONOMY

• Gold has replaced Card XP as the primary in-game currency
  • Players now earn Gold instead of Card XP
• Completely rebalanced in-game economy
  • Hero kills
  • Minion bounties
  • Passive gold drip
  • Amber link
  • Killstreaks
  • Deathstreaks
  • And much more
    • Anything that previously granted Card XP (and now grants gold) has been rebalanced
• Gold sharing (previously Card XP sharing) reduced from 60% to 40%
• Kill bounties have been adjusted to match the new in-game currency, gold
  • New Formula: Base Hero Bounty + (Total Gold Spent by Hero * Networth Bonus)
    • Base Hero Bounty = 455 Gold
    • Networth Bonus = .01 Gold

HERO LEVELING

• Maximum hero level increased to 20
  • Heroes still receive one ability point per level until level 15

ATTACK SPEED

• Attack speeds have been increased for all heroes
• Maximum and Minimum attack speeds adjusted
  • Minimum Attack Speed- 0.33 attacks per second
  • Maximum Attack Speed- 4.0 attacks per second

CRITICAL STRIKES

• Heroes no longer have innate critical strike chance or critical strike damage
• Each instance of critical strike procs independently and multiple critical strikes can trigger on the same hit. In this case the bonus damage stacks.
  • Example: Greystone attacks a hero for 80 damage while having Shatter Golem and Critical Hits equipped. Shatter Golem grants a 15% chance to deal 75% bonus damage and Critical Hits grants a 20% chance to deal 100% bonus damage. If they both trigger on the same hit Greystone will deal 80 * (1 + .75 + 1) = 220

RESPAWN TIMER

• Respawn timer formula adjusted
  • Formula reworked to Respawn Time in Seconds = 7 + (HeroLvl * 2 * (1 + Match Time Minutes * 0.03))
    • Example: Level 12 Steel dies at 18:41 match time. Respawn Time in Seconds = 7 + (12 * 2 * (1 + 18 * 0.03)) = 43.96
• Respawn time is capped at 80 seconds

ARMOR

• Armor formula adjusted
• Armor can reach a negative value
  • If your armor reaches a negative value, you will be dealt additional damage from that damage type
  • The damage dealt against a target with negative armor is calculated as: Damage Dealt = Damage * (1 + (1 – 0.99^|Armor|))
    • Example: Twinblast attacks for 105 damage against Gideon with -25 armor. Damage Dealt = 105 * (1 + (1 – 0.99^25)) = 128.3

MANA REGEN

• Mana Regeneration formula reworked
  • Formula reworked to Mana Regeneration = Base Regen * (1 + Percent Increased Regen) + Flat Additional Regen
    • Example: Gadget has 2.14 Base mana regeneration and a card which grants +50% mana regeneration and +2 additional mana regeneration. Mana Regeneration = 2.14 * (1 + 0.5) + 2 = 5.21

RIVER BUFF

• Decreased black buff damage from 100% to 60% base damage.
• Decreased red buff damage bonus from 25% to 10%.

MINIONS

• Reduced call for help duration
  • Call for help defined:
    • When an allied player attacks an enemy player with enemy minions nearby, the enemy minions will aggro to the allied player

PRIME HELIX

• Removed Orb Prime Cards
  • Prime will always give the same buff to all players now.
    • Reduced Orb Prime damage bonus buff from 20% to 10%.
    • Reduced Orb Prime minion health buff from 25% to 12%.
• Heroes can no longer lifesteal off of Prime Helix
  • We believe that a single hero (often times a Carry) defeating Prime Helix alone is unhealthy
    • Prime is designed as a group objective, and should require multiple team members to take it down

SUPER MINION WAVES

• All minions in the super minion wave now deal 40% more damage and have 25% more health

AURAS

• Increased default aura radius from 1000 units to 1500 units

ATTRIBUTES RENAMED

• Renamed ‘Basic Armor’ to ‘Basic Defense’
• Renamed ‘Ability Armor’ to ‘Ability Defense’

ITEMIZATION SYSTEM

ALL NEW ITEMIZATION SYSTEM

• Gold can now be spent on purchasing attribute points
  • Attribute points grant stats and additional bonuses upon reaching a major gem slot
    • Agility – Grants 1.5 Attack Speed, and 1.1 Basic Defense.
      • Slot 1 – +2.25% Lifesteal
      • Slot 7 – 5 Power
      • Slot 13 – 12 Basic Defense
      • Slot 19 – 9 Attack Speed
      • Slot 25 – 9 Basic Damage
    • Vitality – Grants 22 Max Health, .53 Health Regen
      • Slot 1 – 2.2 Health Regen
      • Slot 7 – 5 Power
      • Slot 13 – 12 Ability Armor
      • Slot 19 – 9 Attack Speed
      • Slot 25 – 9 Basic Damage
    • Intellect – Grants 13 Max Mana, +4.8% Mana Regen
      • Slot 1 – 35 Max Mana
      • Slot 7 – +3.2% Ability Damage
      • Slot 13 – +40% Mana Regen
      • Slot 19 – 6 Power
      • Slot 25 – +15% Cooldown Reduction

GENERAL

• We emphasized the visual and auditory response players will experience when they land a killing blow
  • Amber orbs have been visually changed to gold and a new sound effect has been added
  • Visual and sound effects are more obvious to the player
  • Players will only see and hear effects when they get the killing blow
    • Teammates will no longer see or hear these effects if they do not land the killing blow
• Polish and Bug Fixing
  • Increased the range of the Raptor camps projectiles
  • Previously, the Raptor camp would not deal damage to their target if they were at the projectile’s maximum range
    • Raptors will no longer miss their target if they are at maximum range
• Increased the duration of Tier 1 Tower’s Bonus Armor from 5 minutes to 7 minutes

UPDATED PS4 CONTROLLER LAYOUTS

• The PS4 control scheme has been updated to match the newly reworked gameplay experience
  • We believe this new system is more intuitive for new and veteran players. Additional control schemes have also been added

TUTORIAL

• Polish and Improvements
  • Improved and clarified the Text // Tooltip messages
  • Adjusted the positioning of home base pads
  • Improved Steel’s AI behavior
  • Increased the spawn time of enemy minions

AI

• Polish and Improvements
  • Offlane & Carry bots will no longer assist opposite lanes
    • This cuts down extended early game roaming from bots
• Bots will now target the gold buff more often in the early game
• The Offlaner bot will now attempt to steal gold camps
• The Support bot will no longer attacks gold camps
• Carry & Offlane bots will always prioritize pushing mid lane if their tier one tower is down and enemy mid lane tier one tower is still up
• Higher level bots will now recall at a lower health % to keep them in the fight longer

UI

GENERAL

• Draft Screen Update
  • Heroes now display their Mastery Rank in the Draft lobby for all to see
  • Added an option to hide your Mastery crown in Customization
  • Removed “Available Decks” tab for every hero
• In-Game UI
  • Redesigned Card Shop
  • Added a new Quick-Buy screen (tap G or touchpad) to purchase attributes while in the field
  • Redesigned Scoreboard
  • Replaced the old Card XP wheel with current Gold count
  • Moved to top-left of screen
• Added a series of tutorial popups that explain the new UI changes
  • These appear in the first game you play (after the V42 update)

MENUS

• Menu Reorganization
  • Added Tabs:
    • Added Chest Selection tab
    • Added Loot Crate tab
    • Added Cards, Decks, and Gems tabs
    • Added Collection tab
      • Profile tab renamed to Collection
  • Removed Tabs:
    • Profile Overview tab removed
• Hero Page Update
  • Redesigned the Mastery tab
  • Removed overview videos from the abilities tab
• Store Updates
  • You can now preview items inside of Loot Crates!
  • Removed Masteries and Card Packs from the Store

LOOT CRATE UPDATE

• V42 Loot Crate Changes
  • Added
    • Epic
      • Emerald Heavenly Focus Kwang
      • Royal Heavenly Focus Kwang
      • Tropic Autumn Keeper Fey
      • Citrine Autumn Keeper Fey
    • Rare
      • Topaz Battlequeen Zinx
      • Sanguine Battlequeen Zinx
    • Common
      • Coral Default Narbash
      • Fossil Default Narbash
      • Ocean Diesel Steel
      • Blush Diesel Steel
  • Removed
    • Bronze Titanium Shellshock Gadget
    • Pearl Titanium Shellshock Gadget
    • Ruby Novaborn Greystone
    • Cobalt Novaborn Greystone
    • Gilded Polished Novaborn Greystone
    • Cobalt Polished Novaborn Greystone

Paragon, Epic’s MOBA/hero shooter fusion that is available on PS4 and PC, will be getting a major update that will make far reaching changes to the game. Thee changes will not just be graphical, significantly improving and changing how the game looks, but also have significant impact on how the game plays and on how it is balanced.

The changes include entirely new itemization via a new card system, rebalanced in game economy, full gameplay rebalance, new mastery system, and much more. There are also changes to the graphics, which you can see for yourself via the new screenshot above.

You can find the full patch notes (well, technically not full, but they’re what we have from Epic) for the update for yourself below. Paragon is available now on PS4 and PC. Are you excited for this update? Make sure to let us know in the comments section, and stay tuned for more coverage.

• Final Monolith art update
• Iggy Rework
• Entirely new itemization (Card System rework)
• Rebalanced in-game economy
• Full gameplay rebalance (based on card and economy changes)
• New Mastery system
• Our next ranged carry
• And more!

Epic Games promised that its next hero Zinx would be coming to Paragon soon. Little did we know that she’s out next week, on July 18th to be more exact. Check out her character reveal below.

Zinx is an interesting hero because she can use mana to absorb damage and attack with even greater force for DoT effects on enemies. Bad Medicine is an area of effect attack that can be fired in front of her. Kitty Claws implements the DoT effect on her pistol and can be attack.

Ricochet Stun fires a projectile that can bounce between enemies in proximity while stunning them (each enemy hit increases the duration of the stun). Dirty Healing acts passively and grants Zinx extra mana regeneration based on how much she’s missing. When activated, Zinx heals 50 percent of her health with mana being consumed in the process.

Paragon adds a new hero every three weeks and is currently free to play on PC and PS4. What are your thoughts on Zinx? Let us know in the comments below.

Epic Games’ free to play MOBA Paragon will be receiving a major update on August 8th with patch v.42. The developer is promising quite a lot including the final art update for the Monolith map, a rework for the hero Iggy and Scortch, the next ranged carry and so on.

Players can also expect new itemization, which equates to a rework of the Card System; a rebalanced in-game economy that will also lead to a full gameplay rebalance based on changes to the Cards and economy; a new Mastery System; and so on. More in-depth patch notes for the same can likely be expected before the patch goes live.

In the coming weeks before that, Epic Games will deliver updates v.41.1 to v.41.5 which bring improved stability and performance, bug fixes, quality of life improvements and Zinx, another new hero, who will arrive with patch v.41.3.

Paragon is currently available for PS4 and PC. What are your thoughts on the game thus far? Let us know in the comments.

Epic Games’ Paragon is getting a new hero with Wraith, a surveillance specialist who trained in Echelon, the same special ops program as Kallari the assassin. Unlike his teacher though, Wraith is all about surveying the area and gaining the advantage on his foes.

Wraith’s Knock, Knock! is a long-ranged rifle shot that can pierce geometry. Killing a hero with it refunds the mana cost over time along with reducing cooldown. Who’s There? is a sonar device that will show the location of enemy heroes.

Back it up! lets Wraith teleport an enemy hero to their last location from a few moments prior. Surprise, Surprise! meanwhile sees Wraith and any allies nearby go invisible while gaining a speed boost.

Wraith will be available in Paragon on June 27th. The game itself is free to play on PS4 and PC so you can try out Wraith as soon as he’s available. What are your thoughts on the game thus far? Let us know in the comments.

The latest hero for Epic Games’ Paragon, the melee carry Wukong, arrives today. As a traveling companion to Feng Mao, Wukong was eventually trapped in a cave when Feng became annoyed with him. Wukong is now free though and he’s arrived in Agora to fight. Hey, it’s a living.

The trailer below highlights Wukong’s abilities but in short, they consist of Control Aggression, a passive that grants bonus CP to a random minion in the area from the last hit. There are two stances for this: Defensive and Offensive. Staff of Legend sees Wukong extend his polearm – when used offensively, he can deal damage and push enemies back. Used defensively, he’s able to launch himself into the air.

Cloudwalker gives Wukong double jump. Offensively, his jump will end with a slam that damages and slows enemies. Defensively, it allows him to walk on air after the double jump. 84,000 Hairs is his Ultimate ability that sees Wukong strike a minion, hero or structure to clone himself. The clone will then deal damage around it, though the clones’ damage is a percentage of Wukong’s. Furthermore, the clones can’t move.

Paragon is currently available for free on PS4 and PC. What are your thoughts on Wukong? Let us know below.

Epic Games’ Paragon won’t just be receiving a new hero on May 16th with Phase, a ranged Support that can heal her teammates, but a large update called Age of Intellect.

Along with Phase, we’ll see several heroes being worked to change their usability and improve them overall. Steel and Murdock have seen their kits updated while Shinbi’s changes allow her to “unlock her full potential”. The card system will be also be changing with Epic promises several reworks to niche cards to better balance them across the library.

As for Phase, she’s capable of healing players with Telekinetic Link; firing an energy blast called Psychic Flare that can damage and blind enemies in the area; emitting an energy beam called Energy Lance to damage enemies with each hit stacking a slow effect and eventually root them; and Hyperflux, which allows Phase and her linked hero to gain faster movement, attack speed, +75 mana regen and cooldown reduction.

You can check out the full patch notes here along with Phase’s trailer below.