Last December, Epic Games revealed Paragon to the world. Although still in alpha stage, this MOBA certainly has caught our attention. Here are five reasons why we think you should be keeping it under your radar. 

5 Reasons To Look Forward to Paragon

This past PlayStation Experience ended in December last year with one of the hottest genres of the moment: a MOBA. Epic Games chose finally to reveal some snippets of what their new game looks and feels like. Since then it has received quite the attention of genre fanatics and the curious. While displaying your typical MOBA elements, Paragon is aligning more with the last generation of MOBAs that gear towards a cross-genre type of gameplay, such as Smite. Epic Games promises a gorgeous visual experience, great doses of action, new ways of customization and a deep strategic experience.

Although we have not seen that much of the game since that official announcement some gameplay videos have been released. And quite frankly, it looks pretty neat. Specially considering that the game is still in alpha stage and they are not remotely done. So while we wait, let’s go with five detailed reasons to keep on feeding the hype.

Strategy & customization: your deck of cards

The item scheme of most MOBAs has been changed here into a system of cards that will work in a similar way but with subtle differences. Before any match we will build our deck of cards in the customization option and bring it into the game. These cards will boost different aspects of our hero while mitigating the advantages of our possible enemies during that match. This guarantees not only an element of surprise in each of our encounters, but also a high level of strategy based on in-game knowledge.

Paragon’s Creative Director, Steven Superville, described this system as a sort of poker or chess game. Players may create their own build based on what other common builds for heroes are out there, thinking in how to counterbalance them. But then we might expect that and build our deck following another pattern, therefore changing the rules and gaining advantage.

Epic has assured the players that there will be a few hundred cards already prepared for the early access. Plus they want to make sure that everyone arrives to a competitive situation rather quickly.

Compelling heroes’ rooster

A first glance over the heroes’ list has confirmed 13 interesting fellas. Some of them look familiar if you happen to be inside the MOBA family already – nevertheless, they have a charm of their own. The idea is to keep on adding heroes in the future but we can already distinguish the main builds and class types.

There are support folks, casters (inflicting buffs and energy damage), your typical slow but reliable tank class, long-range types and swift fighters for close-melee combats. Plus they give us a gadgety furry rodent encased in a steam-punk armor (thanks, really).

Some of these heroes share more than one specialization. You will be able to customize their skills even better thanks to the fore-mentioned deck of cards.

The core gameplay

[blockquote cite=”Steve Superville, Creative Director”]Traditionally MOBAs have the top-down view, and you’re more a puppeteer than in control. [In Paragon] you have all the things that traditionally make MOBAs great, and then you pair it with this super heroic fantasy feeling that you get when you actually participate in fights.[/blockquote]

Let’s talk in-game mechanics. We have already mentioned that Paragon is positioning itself clearly within the new generation of MOBA titles. You have your typical three lanes, jungle, core, minions and towers but there are new elements as well. Players play in a third-person view, allowing for more variety of tactical moves since the range of vision is bigger, also engaging in more immersive encounters.

We will level up our abilities as we play, retreat to base when our health is low, travel faster back to combat thanks to the “travel mode” and obtain Amber, the internal currency for cards and upgrades, not only by slaying minions, towers and other players but also by collecting them at the so-called Harvesters. Since the key to victory in Paragon is teamwork, we can expect a great deal of communication commands too.

One of the aims is to keep the game solid for genre enthusiasts while making it attractive for rookies.
Definitely, this could be the first MOBA for a lot of people out there.

Cross-platform interaction

Paragon is bringing cross-play and cross-progression between PS4 and PC: you will be able to connect from whatever platform is that you are using and save your results into your centralized profile. The end goal is for all the systems to be seamless when it comes to the social features of the game: friend-invite, guild and parties creation, etc.  This also extend to the device that you are using. The game is designed in such a way that fits perfectly with a typical keyboard layout or a controller.

Keep this in mind for future Esport scenarios – it could be very huge.

The graphics

The game is of course fueled by Epic’s own creation, Unreal Engine 4. And you totally feel it – Agora, the first map revealed, looks gorgeous. The team has accomplished a great visual quality in all their game elements, from lush vegetation to the energy sparks of the caster spells.

They have also confirmed that the graphics are currently far from what they want them to be. So expect even more with the official launch.

[divider]
All things considered, Epic Games proposal feels solid. They seem to have all reasons to be optimistic and first reviews have been very favorable so far. There are still a number of features to be defined, that’s true, but the potential of this new MOBA title is there and they have their priorities clear.

[blockquote cite=”Steve Superville, Creative Director of Paragon”]We’re just focused on making a fun and competitive game. We’ve never made a game like this before, so we want to be humble and honest with ourselves about the chance that we have to get this right, and it’s going to take a lot of work.[/blockquote]

Paragon will go into early paid access in Spring of this year and open beta in Summer. You can already sign-up for the beta on their website.