Free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Epic Games, Paragon has a rather sad backstory we’ve witnessed from the very beginning.
Paragon started pay-to-play early access in March 2016, and free-to-play access to its open beta started in February 2017, and finally Epic Games announced that servers would be shut down on April 26, 2018.
Paragon is still a successful game from my point of view, yet the timing was not exactly right. In late 2017, Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode made a remarkable appearance and Epic Games saw significant reduction of player counts in Paragon. The team got smaller and smaller until finally Epic announced they would be closing down Paragon by April 2018, providing full refunds to all players.
Now, Epic Games announced that they are giving away all the $12 million worth assets of Paragon for free. Unreal Engine 4 developers now have access to a full array of assets from Paragon. The assets, built at a cost of over $12 million, include 20 AAA-quality characters, with their respective skins, animations, VFX and dialogue, along with over 1,500 environment components from Paragon. This content is now available free of charge in the Unreal Engine Marketplace, where developers may download Paragon packs to use in their own UE4 projects.
For those interested in importing Paragon characters into their projects, Epic recommends starting with Shinbi, who comes with an animation Blueprint. This can be used as a framework for animating the other characters in the Paragon packs. Epic is also shipping a sample map that is handy for testing and can be used as a baseline for creating more customized environments.
Available Paragon assets include:
- Characters: 20 Paragon Hero characters will be initially available including all skins for distinct character variants. The release also includes base meshes, thousands of textures, VFX and animation cycles, and dialogue with hundreds of sound cues. The character Shinbi comes with an animation Blueprint which can be tailored to specific needs. Epic sends special thanks to OTOY and 3D Scan Store for granting permission to keep intact the high-quality character materials using their facial and body scanning technologies as part of this release.
- Environments: The Paragon release includes over 1,500 environment assets created for the Agora and Monolith maps, including a sample map for developers to use and customize as desired.
- More to Come: Epic will release millions of dollars worth of additional Paragon asset packs beyond the initial $12 million offering through spring and summer 2018.
Fare thee well, Paragon.