Just a little over a week after Epic Games admitted that its free-to-play MOBA Paragon was in trouble, the studio has announced that it will be closed entirely in April.
“We truly appreciate everything you’ve put into Paragon. We received many passionate ideas for where to take the game; the outpouring of thoughtful suggestions is another testament to this incredible community,” the Paragon team wrote. “After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable.”
To Epic’s credit, it’s handling the shutdown as fairly as it possibly can. Full refunds will be given “to every Paragon player for every purchase on any platform,” and they will come from Epic directly rather than individual platforms. PC players can request a refund here, while console players will have to link their Epic accounts, or create one if necessary.
Paragon’s exact player numbers aren’t readily available, but community coordinator Edgar Diaz implied last week that Epic has had doubts about the game for some time. That uncertainty has been brought into sharper focus by the runaway success of Fortnite, which he said as become “far larger than anything in Epic’s past.”
Paragon game servers will continue to operate until April 26, although Epic warned, “As the player population continues to decrease, matchmaking times and quality will further degrade.”