Fortnite’s success is killing other Epic projects

One of the downsides to the massive success of Epic Games’ Fortnite and specifically its Battle Royale mode which has been able to effectively compete head to head with current gaming darling PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is that other Epic projects have really suffered. In fact it’s lead to their cancellation entirely. Although fears continue to swirl around the future of the Unreal Tournament remake that Epic has been working on for a few years, the latest casualty at the long-time developer is Paragon.

Paragon is Epic’s attempt at tackling the popularity of the MOBA genre, when MOBAs were the hot ticket at least. It utilized a third-person perspective a little like Smite, but brought to bear a much more streamlined laning experience, as well as gorgeous Unreal Engine graphics and all of the spit and polish you would expect from a AAA Epic Game. It was free to play though, which meant it wasn’t as fleshed out as some of its more classic story-driven experiences.

That also meant that it needed a big player base on a consistent basis and it just hasn’t been able to maintain it. As with many other parts of the gaming industry, Epic has had to follow the money too, which is why it’s now putting all of its eggs into the Fortnite basket. Reportedly the Paragon team has shrunk from over 100 developers to just less than a dozen at last count and now the game is set to shutter for good at the end of April.

“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,” the Paragon team said in a statement (via ). “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.”