Fortnite Might Have Hurt Paragon, But It's Turned Into A $12 Million Gift For Other Devs

Epic Games announced earlier this year that it would close the doors on one of its ongoing projects, the third-person MOBA Paragon. Part of its rationale for doing so was trouble acquiring and retaining players, but the massive success of Fortnite's Battle Royale mode--which has required more of Epic's resources--was also a contributing factor. With a move made today, the success of Fortnite and death of Paragon is suddenly great news for many developers.

In addition developing games of its own, Epic is the studio behind Unreal Engine, which is licensed by numerous companies to create their own games. As of today, Epic has decided to not let the work it did on Paragon go to waste. A "full array" of Paragon's assets have now been released to all Unreal Engine 4 developers. Epic estimates the cost of building those assets--which include 20 "AAA-quality characters" and their skins, animations, visual effects, and dialogue, as well as environmental assets--at over $12 million, which is an eye-opening figure. And that's now all in the hands of developers for free from the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

What this means is that UE4 developers can now freely grab those assets and put them to use in their own projects. In addition to what's already available, Epic will also release even more Paragon assets that cost millions of dollars to produce. These will be released this spring and summer. More details for developers are available here.

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It's an unusual move to see, as developers rarely give away assets even from unreleased projects. Just how developers choose to make use of these assets remains to be seen. You probably won't suddenly see Paragon characters running around in Friday the 13th: The Game or other UE4 games, but the work Epic has already done may benefit other developers, particularly younger ones who can learn from it.

Paragon remains playable for the time being, but Epic is offering refunds for all purchases ever made in it. Paragon's servers will shut down on April 26.