Fortnite‘s Popularity Is Forcing Epic to Question Their Commitment to Paragon

The future of Epic’s free-to-play MOBA Paragon was called into question Wednesday in a statement released to the game’s Reddit. The developer announced that the game’s “release cadence will be slower” for the foreseeable future, attributing the decreased attention to the growth of and strengthened commitment to their runaway smash-hit Fortnite. “A number of Paragon team members jumped onto Fortnite to help sustain the game as it has grown far larger than anything in Epic’s past,” said Epic.

Much of Fortnite’s success can be attributed to the free-to-play Fortnite: Battle Royale mode, launched as an add-on to the original early access game. The game has emerged as the largest competitor to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in the battle royale genre that caught fire in 2017.

The same cannot be said for Paragon. The title has struggled to find a foothold since its early access release in March 2016, with constantly tweaks and overhauls to key aspects of the game. “Our efforts have always been focused on growing the game,” said Epic, continuing, “While each of these incarnations has been beloved by a core community, none has been large enough to achieve mainstream success.” The promise of a title that racked up one million players sign up for its initial beta now struggles to retain players who “play regularly after a month.”

Epic doesn’t seem to have lost passion for the project, but is being forced to address what Paragon needs to be in order to survive as Fortnite soaks up more of the development force. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll be figuring out if and how we can evolve Paragon to achieve growth and success … we are not all in agreement on what could place Paragon on a fundamentally better path for all,” said Epic.

The latest patch for Paragon, V.45, is scheduled for release this week.