Gaming
We spoke to the Unreal dev about jumping out of its shooter comfort zone with its own take on MOBAs.
When you think of Epic Games, you'll think Unreal Tournament, Gears of War or maybe even Jazz Jackrabbit. That dedication and focus to action shoot 'em ups for the better part of nearly two decades has defined the North Carolina studio, along with their Unreal Engine that has powered dozens, if not hundreds, of games you've played.
Epic's now getting out of their comfort zone, although not completely leaving heart-stopping action behind, with their latest title, Paragon. Blending MOBA gameplay with a distinctive third-person viewpoint – along with a dash of the usual gorgeous visual fidelity you've come to expect from Epic – the studio's non-FPS looks like one of the most exciting properties the company has made in a while.
We headed to Berlin, Germany to chat with creative director Steve Superville about what inspired the game, how the community is shaping the MOBA in an already crowded market and what the future holds for Paragon's console plans.
If you've played an Epic Games title over the past two decades, it's likely to be either from the first-person shooter franchise, Unreal, or the grizzled third-person shooter franchise Gears of War. Both have a lot in common: you shoot stuff. The ability to damage foes is still here in Paragon, but it's like nothing Epic has ever done before.
You've got multiple heroes to choose from, each with their own abilities. You have your typical archetype MOBA classes, all made from the ground up in classic OTT Epic style. You don't have a Redeemer, you have an Ultimate ability. So how did Epic go from making straight up shooters to diving into one of the most complex genres in gaming right now?
"We started as just a small team in Epic, and our goal was to basically create a competitive online multiplayer game. And that was the whole brief," Steve Superville explains. "It was very broad."
"So we spent three-to-four months playing games, competitive games. We played just about everything we could get our hands on or remember playing: we played Call of Duty, UT, Quake, shooters, Planetside, World of Warcraft PvP, StarCraft, Command & Conquer. Basically we went across all the genres," he says. "We played lots of MOBAs, we played lots of board games like Settlers of Catan, we played sports games. We played everything.
"What we discovered as we were spending these weeks playing games, and what we kept coming back to the office talking about, was stories of playing these MOBAs. So we were like, 'this MOBA thing, it's sticky' – more than half the team, at least seven or eight people out of 12, hadn't played a MOBA before. And we found for some reason that MOBAs were really sticky, so we started to believe that it was because players would build these stories of combat that only happened because they were there.
"So okay, that was really sticky, and lots of people are making those kind of games: could Epic bring something different? Is this worth exploring at all? And so our first instinct was to go back to our action roots, our pedigree of making Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, and try out what heroes would feel like if we did it our way."
Before you start thinking of Marcus Fenix under your control from a top-down perspective, or a group of Skaarj warriors to take down in map's jungle, Epic have wanted to create this totally from the ground up. That means no past settings, no previously established characters and nothing at all reused – getting out of the comfort zone for Epic means making something entirely brand new, and that also means making something that hasn't really been seen before in the MOBA space.
"We very quickly latched onto this idea quickly, having looked at a lot of the marketing for other MOBAs – that they're these cinematic experiences, or cinematic trailers, that present a fantasy to the players, and that fantasy is very different from what the gameplay actually is," Superville tells us. "The games are very good, they're just very different to what is presented [to players], so our thought was, to use our Epic pedigree and bring action and cinematic experiences closer together."
While Epic had teased the game before, Paragon had its true, grand debut seven months ago at Sony's December PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, first showcasing the kind of swish cinematic trailer you'd expect from a MOBA, but also showing off its first gameplay video – and audiences were stunned. Superville tell us, "We had a lot of fun at PSX where we announced Paragon with our very own cinematic trailer, and people were like, 'that's just the cinematic, I want to see gameplay', and at the same time, we showed our very first gameplay video, which was done with our in-game replay tool, and people were like 'wow, that's the gameplay?'"
The two match each other: what you see is what you'll really play. And what you play is very compelling. It's fun, it looks great, and most importantly, it's actually pretty easy to pick up – something that can't be said about a lot of other MOBAs on the market.
"There are gamers who've never played a MOBA before, who have been turned off for any number of reasons: the top down view; they can't get past the small guy on the screen and not having direct control; or that there are too many heroes; or too many items to understand what's going on," Superville explains. "So we've intentionally got the game out early, before it gets too expansive in its content, and that allows a lot of players who've never really experienced MOBAs to come in.
"So we started with 13 heroes, we've grown to 17, and every three weeks there's a new one. 17 is starting to get to a point where there's a lot of choices, but you can still understand what's going on."
By starting a lot smaller than the hundreds of heroes found in other MOBAs, Paragon gives you the chance to really learn the small cast and the play mechanics in a much easier and more confined way. Whether we'll see the cast expand to a similar huge level at the game's final launch is yet to be seen, but at the rate that it's going, you won't be overwhelmed by character choice when the final version ships, and Superville is adamant that Paragon's equivalent to an item shop won't swamp you either.
"Our card system is designed much in the same way: in traditional MOBAs, you play, you get some gold, and then you open the shop and there are hundreds of items – you have to understand what they are, what they do and what to choose, and that's really overwhelming.
"Our card system, on the front end, is much more approachable, because you choose a character, say [long-ranged Ranger-type] Twinblast for example, and the game gives you a starting deck of 30 cards that are relevant and meaningful to him – and everyone can learn 30 cards."
Those cards give you your typical stat and attribute bonuses, such as an attack speed boost, or a critical damage lift, and while that seems more simple to begin with than a fully-stocked item shop, when you get to a higher level of using the cards, it evolves into a complex mind game where you'll battle other players before the actual game even begins.
"When you're really experienced, your cards will really start to matter," Superville tells us. "Because you're making strategic choices before a match, you're building a deck, you're now in a mental chess match with the other players. You make decisions that are based on which cards you're going to bring in, and that's your itemisation store for the entire match. And now you get to the chess match of the most common builds for a character like Steel is this, but I know that you know that this is the most common build, so I have to change up my deck before we get into the game. So you're making predictions and decisions outside of the game before the match even starts – and that snowballs and snowballs into something really tactical."
While there are still plenty of features missing that you might come to expect from more seasoned MOBAs (a draft mode, for example, is coming up shortly in a new patch, as is ranked play in the future), Epic's making sure it's got the balance right first, and it's learning and making changes alongside the early fans who are playing while it's being made: that living, breathing game development is part of taking this leap of faith, and it enables them to make something that's finely tuned and should feel much more complete when the final version is ready to roll out later this year.
One such new change coming up is improving map-wide mobility, giving players a teleport ability with a substantial cooldown letting you jump to allied structures quickly, giving you another tactic in your arsenal to play with. Another creative and potential addition is summonable drop pods, letting you purchase items in the field, but it comes with it's own risks – you have to wait for it to drop, you have to defend it against enemies, and it'll have a lengthy cooldown.
Of course, these changes are not set in stone forever – more play tests with the community will see if these additions are for the better, and Epic can easily change things around and carry on with other fine tweaks to make sure it plays as well as it can.
Listening and developing Paragon alongside its burgeoning community is what Superville would say is key – feedback and wishlists help shape the game, and throwing new things into the mix will be met with the kind of in-depth feedback you could only get from die-hard fans.
"I had a personal goal of making a game that could not be developed without the community," Superville tells us. "MOBAs are huge and have such a massive matrix of options: there's no chance we're going to get it right straight away. We wanted to make a living game, and I wanted us to get out of our comfort zone, and we couldn't succeed unless we had highly engaged players, and MOBAs are very much of that genre, and we've launched that way.
"We've started with online tests and bringing players in, getting their feedback and gradually moved to paid early access, where people were super passionate and committed enough that they would frontload money, would come and join us. And then, on August 16, we're open and free, and hopefully will be ready for a much larger group of people to get in."
Once players get in, they'll be treated to a slick and fluid game that runs at 60FPS on PlayStation 4 and an equivalent specced-PC, but if your PC can't quite run it just yet, there's hope on the way. We're working on optimisations to help scale down to the lesser end – the goal has always been to have competitive play and competitive players wherever they are," Superville tells us. "We're working as fast as we can to make optimisations so that players can play on mid-spec laptops."
You won't need a beefy gaming PC to play it unless you want all the bells and whistles, but once you're up and running, you'll be able to play with both PS4 and PC players as the game supports cross-platform play.
"Crossplatform is as broad as we are able to make it, which is almost everything. So when you match-make, you can be matched up with people on different platforms; it means when you make a party, you can make a party of PC and PS4 players," Superville tells us. "Your progression matches, so if you play on one platform, or if you purchase one thing on one platform, it's available to you on the other platform, so skins, cosmetics, and currency. Our end goal is to do VoIP across platforms too – that's a couple months of work and a few ways out, but that's the goal. It should be seamless; our goal is to have no second class solutions. Competitive players should be able play wherever they want."
With Microsoft focusing on slowly blurring the lines between Xbox One and PC, with plenty of first-party titles launching on both platforms, the question is whether we could eventually see Paragon on Xbox One – and that fits in with Superville's mantra of having players able to play wherever they want.
"We are focused on PS4 and PC right now, but who knows what the future holds," Superville says. "I will say that, if we get around to doing it, I really want to make sure that' is what's best for the player and have all the same cross-platform functionality. That then would become more of a business conversation rather than technical."
With the likes of Rocket League also incorporating cross-platform play, with PS4 and PC players currently able to play together, as well as Xbox One and PC users, it sounds like a no-brainer for Epic to follow suit – and with the studio's Unreal Engine, which is famous for supporting nearly every platform under the sun, it's inevitable, and more of a question of when we'll see it on Xbox One. As the game gets tinkered and eventually perfected, we’re hoping it’s soon.
Paragon’s free-to-play pre-release open beta launches August 16 on PlayStation 4 and PC.
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