“It no longer looks like a graphics card demo. It looks fun”
Playing dress-up till the world ends in Paragon
Paragon will very likely be a game everyone remembers for what it wasn’t—if anyone remembers it at all. It wasn’t League of Legends, with its vibrant color palette. It wasn’t Overwatch’s blend of accessible action, with a cast factory built to play matchmaking with on Tumblr. It mimicked those things, but lacked their essential spark. That lack of character is probably why, despite enjoying Epic Games’s late-to-the-party shooter/MOBA hybrid, Paragon never became the kind of game I could effortlessly fall into for a weekend or two every month. The ostensibly photorealistic look didn’t help. While technically impressive, Paragon stood out about as much as a Gears of War character.
This was especially noticeable in the week leading up to the game’s closure. Part of Epic’s mea culpa for killing the not-very-popular shooter in favor of the very popular Fortnite was to practically give away the game’s bright, shiny cosmetics. It only costs me one in-game credit to give, say, the game’s mascot character, ShootGuns Fauxhawkson [it’s TwinBlast—Nomenclature Ed], a pink jacket and glowing eyes.
Without the need to grind for it, I finally get to play dress-up. The hoodie-wearing wizard, Gideon, becomes an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean. Iggy and Scorch (a goblin riding a mutant dinosaur) transform into a fox creature astride a chubby phoenix. When I’m done, Paragon no longer looks like a graphics card demo. It looks fun.
Not that there’s anyone around to appreciate it. A notice on the
When I was done, Paragon didn’t look like a graphics card demo. It looked fun
developer’s website warned that matchmaking quality would “further degrade”. It wasn’t wrong. In this last week, the game is a ghost town.
Dressed to the nines
Players fail to ready up, further extending ten-minute matchmaking queues. Once the brawls do begin, they’re often plagued by fatalistic teammates. I try to lift spirits by encouraging my allies in chat, but my flamboyant comrades rely on sterile chat barks to communicate.
It’s eerie. Too-realistic faces wrapped in ridiculous Halloween costumes battle across a dying, digital world in silence. We are all just showing off to one another while there’s anything left to show off at all. Of course, that emptiness leaves me with time to think of things other than playing Paragon. Specifically, it highlights what its competitors do so much better.
Overwatch’s thin strip of lore ignites sparks between fictional foes. League’s color palette makes it feel vibrant and distinctive. Even Dota 2’ s character quips magnify the grins and frowns of winning or losing.
Paragon has—had—little to none of that. What charisma it had was locked behind paywalls. Most who played it probably never got to see that side of the game. But, even though I’ll likely only remember it for that absent appeal, Paragon’s death has served to remind me what I love about those that survive it.