Edge - April 2016

H
P
Y
E
PArAGOn
Grux is a powerful roamer,
specialising in emerging
suddenly from the jungle
to lay waste to isolated
opponents. Visually, he
comes from the same
school of design as
Gears Of War’s Locust
for the team that’s able to lay claim to it,
and victory is a matter of coordinating a
multi-pronged, asymmetrical campaign across
three fronts that translates into a territorial
advantage and, in turn, the ability to lay siege
to the enemy base and win the game.
Paragon includes all of these familiar ideas,
but each of them has been recalibrated to
work in three dimensions. The setting is a
futuristic but ruined temple complex, covered
with vegetation and set into a mountainside.
Unlike any other game of this type, the lanes
are on an incline. In Dota or LOL you might
talk about ‘top’, ‘middle’, or ‘bottom’ lane due
to their position on the isometric map: here
the same terminology is appropriate due to
their physical position relative to one another.
Top lane, off to one side, is the highest point
on the map. The mountainside curves down
from there towards mid, and then there’s a
sharp drop-off towards bottom lane.
This is a major point of difference between
Paragon and Hi-Rez’s Smite, the game it’s
closest to: the latter is played in thirdperson
but for the most part takes place on a 2D
plane. Paragon’s topological variety allows it to
do away with RTS-style fog of war, necessary
in Smite, because lines of sight are naturally
obscured by the environment. You can see
clearly from top lane down to mid and
bottom, if you look, but you’re just as likely
to miss the assassin sneaking up on you
because of a rocky outcrop or a ridgeline.
Paragon’s jungle takes the form of a pair of
sunken valleys between raised lines, separated
physically by staircases and visibly by a tree
canopy – you can’t see what’s happening
down there at all unless you place wards, and
shaking an enemy pursuit in this winding,
disorienting area feels surprisingly like it
does in more traditional games of this type.
Each lane’s ‘towers’ take the form of a
paired crystal and an arcane cannon set into a
nearby part of the environment. The crystal is
the thing you destroy, but you’re always aware
of fire coming from above you. Raised areas
around key chokepoints offer the opportunity
for a defending team to (literally) get the drop
on their opponents, and failing to keep track
of who is where for a moment can be fatal:
a little like failing to keep an eye on the
minimap in a traditional MOBA, but rooted
in environmental design rather than the UI.
Within this new context, Paragon’s current
character roster is relatively traditional.
Gunslinger Twinblast offers an easy way in
for shooter players, fulfilling the carry role
with high damage output that scales as the
match progresses. Gideon represents Paragon’s
take on the MOBA mid-laner: a high-DPS
mage with built-in teleport and a high-impact
Ultimate. The experience he gains in a solo
lane translates into teamfight-turning power
around the map. His detailed character model
and the flashy visual effects that surround his
moveset rest on top of a design that has a lot
of Dota in its DNA – even his Ultimate, Black
Hole, shares its name and theme with one of
that game’s most famous abilities.
Paragon’s characters come into their
own when their abilities interact with the
environment. Support caster Dekker has a
These are familiar ideas, but
they have been recalibrated
to work in three dimensions
stun in the form of a projectile ball of energy
that can be bounced off walls to catch targets
unaware, and frontliner Steel can shove
enemies with a charge attack: towards his
team, away from his team, or even off a cliff
and into the jungle as the situation (or
accident) dictates.
As characters level up they earn Card
Points, which are spent on unlocking upgrades
from a deck of cards that players assemble on
a per-character basis before each game. In
minute-to-minute play, this doesn’t feel
much different to an item store in a
traditional MOBA, but being able to unlock
and tweak new bonuses outside of a match is
new. The implementation of the card system
is the roughest part of the current alpha, and
the most difficult to assess in a limited play
session. It suggests the kind of longterm
depth that will sustain interest, but it also
presents the biggest barrier to entry in terms
of learning. How deftly Paragon walks that
line will be crucial, but the game certainly
sets a promising precedent elsewhere. n
action replay
Both the PC and PS4
versions of Paragon
will feature a
powerful suite of
replay tools that can
be used to pore over
your past games. You
can filter the replay
timeline for particular
moments and slow
down time to take
note of everything
that happened. The
development team is
looking into ways to
allow players to share
links that will
instantly load
particular parts of a
replay: as Paragon
stores game data and
not raw video, this
can be done very
quickly. Epic envisages
the tool acting as a
teaching aid, allowing
skilled players to
illustrate guides with
relevant replays. The
studio also wants to
support the creation
of highlight reels and
machinima, and
the feature also has
clear implications
for the game’s
competitive future.
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