I enjoyed my time with Epic Games' new third-person MOBA. Paragon runs on Unreal Engine 4, which means it looks absolutely nothing like anything else in the genre, even in this early alpha stage. I'm not sure the character design has the same kind of soul as some of its competitors, but it's still a very impressive thing to see in motion. This is the closest a MOBA has ever actually come to looking like its own CG trailer.
It's also unashamedly part of the genre. Paragon calls itself a MOBA, not a 'hero shooter' and it fully embraces that identity. This is a game with three lanes, towers and a jungle. There's a decent list of of heroes (13 at launch, with more planned), each with their own set of unique abilities and ultimates. A single match can last anywhere between 20 minutes and upwards of an hour, depending on the skill of the teams involved. Epic isn't reinventing the formula here and I don't think it's trying to make MOBAs 'more accessible', as so many have promised. Paragon is simply a good looking game, that can also be played on a console. That's the hook.
It's fun, too. I like that you need to aim even your most basic attacks, whether that's an energy blast, or a swing of a fist. If you haven't played a third-person MOBA before, this takes some getting used to, as will, I'm sure, the option to gain a height advantage over your opponent. This one sort of blew my mind. Paragon is a MOBA with verticality! On the map we played, each lane offered ridges to climb and bombard enemy players from higher ground and get this: the jungle itself was on a lower tier of the map. This means that each lane has certain points at which you can jump down, through the canopy, into the jungle and ambush opposing players. I liked that a lot.
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