‘We at Epic want to have our cake and eat it too’
The MOBA space is getting crowded. So much so, that some studios are even downsizing. But others are flourishing, making bank every day, and new games are popping up all the time.
Epic Games’ Paragon is still a ways away from its full release, but with an open beta starting today, it’s poised to usher in a whole new audience. I had the chance to speak to Steve Superville, Creative Director, on what the team’s goals are going forward.
Superville has been with Epic for 14 years, and has taken up his first leadership role with Paragon — from what I can tell, it’s in good hands.
After being asked “what makes Paragon an ‘Epic Game’?” (something I see riddled in the marketing), he noted that “first and foremost, it’s competitive, which is at the center of what we’ve always been about.” He then went on to explain that the team has a diverse history in gaming, and when coming up with the idea of their next game, they played just about everything together — strategy titles, old shooters like Unreal Tournament and Quake, mobile and board games — before gravitating towards one of the genres that had the most exciting stories, MOBAs.
The team wanted to do something they’ve never done before, but by moving away from “clicking” and towards an action game where you could feel the weight and impact of the battle in the thick of it. Superville says that his favorite aspect of Paragon is the diversity of the roster, where you can build a “story of combat,” with lots of “you won’t believe what I pulled off” stories. What I really wanted to know though was what he thought of the MOBA genre in general, with so many studios failing in the shadow of League and DOTA. He responded by noting that MOBAs are still “in their infancy” and there’s lots of room for innovation and improvement.
Inquiring further about their target audience, he stated that it’s mostly “hardcore players, people who are committed to MOBAs, to the point where no other game needs to be made,” but they’re also interested in grabbing casual and inexperienced MOBA players with the card system, which Superville aims to have a smaller learning curve than the ever-changing massive item meta, while avoiding cookie-cutter builds. He clarifies that statement a bit though, saying that Paragon is “not intended to be a casual game.” But my favorite conversation of all was how the Paragon beta is actually supposed to be a beta, and not a fancy demo. “We’re going to experiment and change things constantly,” he said, making light of a recent massive patch that altered the way Inhibitors work, among a host of other gameplay alterations.
Paragon is entering its open beta today, so you can give it a shot for yourself. I think the team still has some work to do, but the bones are there.
