Currently in paid Early Access for PlayStation 4 and PC, Paragon will be heading to the free Open Beta phase on August 16 in North America and Europe, Epic Games announced today.
Before the Paragon open beta begins, Epic Games will release a new Hero, Khaimera, for free on June 21:
This melee fighter is Paragon’s first duelist who specializes in disrupting team fights with close-up encounters. His Pounce leaps to a target enemy Hero, briefly stunning that Hero and dealing Physical Damage around him.
While engaged in fights, Khaimera’s Spirit Regeneration stacks more health regen with each basic attack. His Ultimate, Cull, deals a large amount of damage, both rooting and isolating a target from allies.
Assuring Early Access players that “we will never reset your account progress,” Epic Games discussed some of the big changes coming to Paragon very soon.
In next week’s update .27, the biggest ever, you’ll find adjustments to Hero and gameplay balance, a reworking of how Card Experience is distributed, a change in the role minions play, and more:
Our first iteration of Draft Mode will be available with this release and it will change how players select their Heroes by providing the selection after an entire group of 10 players has been placed in a lobby. We’re aiming for Draft Mode to eliminate some of the longer matchmaking queue times in addition to providing the opportunity to collaborate with fellow teammates when selecting your Heroes into combat. We believe this will allow for a more synergized team composition before each match.
Hero balance is being fundamentally reworked to allow for a more concise play experience with various Hero roles and to improve the effectiveness of a number of Heroes in combat. One of the most notable changes affecting all Heroes will be the removal of Passive abilities. We’re also removing the ability to level each Hero’s Basic Attack ability. We found that both of these options, Passive Abilities and leveling choices, did not provide as much depth or strategic value as initially envisioned.
Card Experience sharing (CP) is one of the cornerstone features of Paragon. That being said, we are making changes because we want to provide more commitment to choice through the roles and positions you decide to play throughout a match.
You can learn more about update .27 in the above video, or by reading the long list of patch notes on Paragon‘s website.
Paragon was recently released at retail on PS4.
