If you are familiar with Epic Games and its popular title, Fortnite, then you may be familiar with the game that it recently announced the shut down of Paragon. This shut down came out of nowhere, and hit the community like an invisible truck.





The lack of communication from the Paragon developer team to the game's player base was alarming behavior for a AAA company to have. This is a brief summary of Paragon's history, and why its downfall should make Fortnite players a little wary of trusting Epic Games.

Paragon will close down on April 26, 2018. For more information, click here. https://t.co/sd5L7xy33c pic.twitter.com/1JTDAmyifB — Paragon (@Paragon) January 26, 2018

Paragon started with early online tests near the end of 2015, in the beginning of 2016. These trials were invite only, and the hype for getting in one of these trials was real. Once Epic Games did away with the online tests, and moved into Alpha, the game became available to a much larger player base.

You asked, we listened. Twinblast is getting a rework in V.35. Get the details and an #Every3Weeks update here: https://t.co/zCsPGID3on pic.twitter.com/dwW3oLawJi — Paragon (@Paragon) December 2, 2016

Since the game was an alpha, there was plenty of things that needed to be balanced. Unfortunately, Epic Games was focused on producing a hero every three weeks, a campaign that it stuck to longer than it should have.





In concept, the campaign was fantastic. Players would be able to play new hero every three weeks, a thing that you can't do in any other MOBA. But when executed, Epic Games made Paragon an unbalanced mess. Actual hero changes and balancing happened in small doses, but balancing seemed less important to Epic Games than releasing new heroes.





Eventually, Epic Games released old hero reworks every three weeks, which were more anticipated than the constant releases of imbalanced heroes.

No more sprinting in Paragon and other major changes https://t.co/eGGjqA9t8W — Polygon (@Polygon) June 10, 2016

Those who played the Alpha and Beta versions of Paragon were able to fall in love with Legacy, the game's original map. Legacy had a ton of problems, but many of them were masked by the amazing detail put into the map. Legacy really showed the potential of the Unreal Engine, and it made the playing the MOBA a lot more fun.





One of the most controversial things about Legacy was that it had a sprint mode, allowing any character to sprint, after a few seconds of charging, and gain immense mobility at the cost of being rooted when hit while sprinting. Naturally, this sprint feature made ganking incredibly easy in Paragon. Because experience and Amber (Paragon's version of gold at the time) was shared without reductions to any nearby teammate, players would group up in a "deathball," sprinting around the map to pick off any players who were foolish enough to push far up in lane.





Epic Games eventually did away with the sprint mechanic, appeasing many of the new MOBA players who were punished for not playing safe. Even without the sprint feature, walking around Legacy took about the same time as it would walking around the Summoner's Rift in League of Legends.





Still, against most of the community's wishes, Epic Games did away with Legacy completely, and produced a much smaller and less exciting map to play on: Monolith.

Paragon Receiving a “Big” Update Next Month Including a Full Gameplay Rebalance & Monolith Art Update https://t.co/yWChJCErjT pic.twitter.com/qeLjiVJgMP — Wccftech (@wccftechdotcom) July 11, 2017

Because Monolith was a new map with a different jungle path (and different enemies), players essentially had to learn Paragon all over again. And, to many players' dismay, learning Paragon over again was a theme throughout the game's timeline. There was a big drop in the player base once Monolith was released, and the players who did remain would soon become disappointed.





One of the most unique features of Paragon is that instead of having an item shop like most MOBAs do, it had a deck building feature, where you could build custom decks containing cards that would power up your hero. It was a creative concept that allowed players to play a hero the way they wanted to. However, building decks was complicated, which was exciting for some players, and frustrating for others.





Likely in an attempt to appease the player base that was unfamiliar with MOBAs, Epic Games decided to fully rework the deck building system. Players who would spent countless hours creating decks for every single one of their heroes had their decks eliminated. Players, once again, had to learn Paragon all over again.





The removal of sprint, Legacy, and the original card mechanics, were the three most disappointing parts of Paragon's timeline, and they were brought into the game even after an overflowing pushback from the community. Epic Games rarely listened to the opinions of Paragon's community, and instead focused on releasing new cosmetics more than they actually balanced the game.





If you play Fortnite, then you already know about Epic Games' commitment to cosmetics.

Hey everyone! We've started the rollout for the Twitch Prime Fortnite loot! Some users may be experiencing errors or delays as we kick this off and we're working through things with @EpicGames Stay tuned for updates. https://t.co/UUQRKf37qG — Twitch Prime (@TwitchPrime) February 28, 2018

Fortnite players have a lot to look forward to from Epic Games. This is definitely the Renaissance period of the game, and the period of the game where Epic Games will pump in a ton of new content. Some of this content will be great, other things, like ​the addition of turbo building, will not be good for the competitive nature of the game.





Right now, to become one of the best players, and beat other good players, you have to learn how to build as fast as possible, and as smartly as possible. In an effort to make the game easier for less skilled players, Epic Games launched a turbo building feature, reducing the skill required to build fast.





Reducing the skill cap in a game is something Epic Games has done in the past, like in Paragon, but to their credit, making games easier is a trend that most companies are employing.

Wtf is this pic.twitter.com/T3FRtDXASk — Fortnite Memes Daily (@fortnite_memes) February 26, 2018

Thankfully, right now, post-double pump, Fortnite is relatively balanced with its weapons. Epic Games is releasing new weapons faster than every three weeks, which could eventually become problematic. But the addition of the "Jetpack" item into Fortnite could mean the beginning of the end, and/or a brand new version of Fortnite .





Depending on on how Epic Games makes the jet pack work in Fortnite, it could make or break the game. The jet pack could be a crutch for new players to negate the high ground advantage that great builders are able to use to their benefit.





It could, potentially, usher in a entirely new version of Fortnite, similar to the removal of sprint in Paragon. Adding new weapons to the game is one thing, because balancing numbers and damage is easy, but adding in an entirely new traversal method in Fortnite is another. You should not be able to win a battle royale without relying on resources. The jet pack could make relying on resources less necessary, breaking an integral part of Fortnite's initial mechanics.





It would be wonderful if the addition of a jet pack does not cause the game to change completely, but it would not be surprising for Epic Games to completely change a core part of another early access titles' gameplay.

Please no rockets please no rockets please no rockets please no rockets pic.twitter.com/aUsUGI54XU — Arby's (@Arbys) March 2, 2018

Fortnite is growing at an exceptional rate, pulling in more money than Paragon ever did, so it's unlikely Epic Games would eventually stop working on the title, and not release the full version. To that, Fortnite players can rest easy, but don't get too comfortable. Epic Games ran Paragon into the ground with awful and ill-advised changes to the game over a couple years.





It will be a blessing if Epic Games has learned from its mistakes, and chooses to listen to the Fortnite community to continue building the game. Let's hope that timeline is in the cards, and not another letdown.





Photo courtesy of Epic Games