 What's up everybody, I'm the Mangus, you are awesome and I usually do very short update videos for various 3rd person games that have sprung up after Paragon, but today I'm going to give you a long boring ass history of the various Paragon 2 projects. It's been quite a ride since that fateful day when Epic closed the servers down for good and there are people still hopping on this roller coaster for the first time, while others jumped off long ago. Very few have stayed patiently with their hands and feet inside the car at all times, I am one of those few. So if you're interested in hearing me drone on about shit that will never matter in the grand scheme of things, grab yourself a ticket, lower that locking bar, and let me guide you through the ups and downs of Paragon's resurrection. Please bear in mind that the footage I use is from the same timeframes that I talk about, so if you see your favorite game looking like Garbage, remember this goes all the way back to 2018. Our story begins before the story of Paragon ends. Epic originally announced that the servers would be going down for good in January of 2018. They would give us a few months to say our farewells, but April was the date set for the game's execution. You may be surprised to learn that the first date of the game for Visionary's project Phoenix Rising was released to the public in March of 2018, a full month before the Paragon servers actually closed. Visionary kicked into gear as soon as the closure announcement was made. They pulled together a team of highly skilled individuals that were willing to invest their free time into creating a spiritual successor to Paragon using their own assets and intellectual property. Visionary made huge strides right out the gate. As you can see from the state of the game, they already had a lot of work done on the game. March of 2018 was also when Epic began releasing the assets used to create Paragon, everything from heroes to environmental structures. Visionary made the decision early on that they would not incorporate those assets into Phoenix Rising, but instead forge ahead with their own IP. This was the decision that I still respect, however it was a move that came back to haunt them. With the release of those assets, we started to see ambitious individuals using them to attempt to recreate the game. Notably, this is when I started seeing work out of Rocket Mania on the Paragon subreddit. He was able to create a pretty functional one-lane game that he was calling Overthrow Paragon. However, Overthrow wasn't intended to be a long-term sustainable game. It was more of a personal project to help Rocket get into the gaming business. Again, though, we're going to see later down the road how significant his efforts ended up being. April came and went, and we all bid a tearful farewell to Paragon. But many of us were already looking forward to Phoenix Rising. Visionary continued to be very active in the community releasing monthly state-of-the-games and live-streaming the 3D modeling process, among other things. Around August of 2018, we were introduced to Unleashed Games, a company working on a Paragon successor project called Project Agora. Unleashed released a video that was mainly cinematics and added Sylphon, a popular Paragon contact creator to their team. Sylphon lent them a bit of credibility and also began interacting with the community to find ways to solve some of the problems Paragon had. During this time, you also had Brain Dead games working on a Paragon successor. I don't know much about Brain Dead games other than that they ended up merging with Unleashed. What I have heard of Brain Dead is not good. There were some documents floating around out there that indicate that Brain Dead's goal from the start was to simply cash in with Paragon nostalgia for a monetary gain. Take that as you will. I can't say if it's true or not and in the end, it doesn't matter much as the real talent they had ended up being sucked up by Unleashed games. Step forward to November of 2018. This was a huge month for Paragon projects, good and bad. November is when I first learned of Omega Studios and their Paragon prequel project called Predecessor. The original plans for Predecessor included an element system that was kind of like a Pokemon one element trumps the other type thing. This concept was eventually scrapped. Almost as soon as I learned of this project, they added RGSAs to their team. Ace was probably the most popular of all of the Paragon creators and was invited to Epic Headquarters several times. As with Unleashed adding Silphon, the inclusion of RGSAs brought some credibility to Meta with the added benefit of insight into what made Paragon tick. The same month Unleashed and Brain Dead officially merged and incorporated. They became Metabuff and they were calling their project Core. It was in November that they also announced their projected alpha date of April 27th, 2019, exactly one year after the Paragon servers closed. Along with the incorporation came Core's first proof of concept, a six video series that ended up being more of a presentation of various proposed ideas than an actual proof of concept. The first video of the series was mainly a hype piece, reiterating the alpha date, promising 10,000 keys and displaying the PlayStation End user agreement. Something I've had a problem with as it gives console players some false hope. Unfortunately, this was also the month that we learned of a huge rift in visionary games. Not only did their lead 3D modeler have to leave the project due to his real life workload, but internal conflict over the direction of the game and the decision to not use the free Epic assets caused many members to leave the company, some of them going over to Metabuff. It looked like the end of Visionary, however, it was announced in December of that year that the remaining members were going to forge ahead, albeit at a much slower pace. The last news we got from Visionary was that they were going to focus on building a one lane demo for the game. And that's where the story of Phoenix Rising ends for us. The project is still going forward, but we haven't received any significant updates since. Fast forward to February of 2019 and we got our first look at the map for Metabuff's Core. They allowed a selection of people to test out two different gray box maps and provide feedback on how to improve. I'm not entirely certain of when exactly it was announced, but it was also around this time that Omega Studios announced that they would have their first Alpha test in March of 2019. Omega hit this timeframe, albeit just barely, holding a three-day Alpha test at the end of the month. The first predecessor Alpha is generally thought of as a huge failure, but it really wasn't that bad. They had some significant issues with Netcode and a host of other bugs, but it was an Alpha test. While we saw it as a loss, the Omega team just looked at it as a necessary step in the game's development. Omega did slow the amount of updates they put out and rained in their live streams through the community. Omega's director, Sergeant Smokey, made an appearance on a podcast that I used to do in April to discuss why they didn't continue to host their Alpha, what they learned, and what they needed to fix. April of 2019 also showed us the functional map for Core, which generated significant excitement and anticipation of their projected Alpha. We still hadn't seen true gameplay, but being able to run around the map as Kalari certainly bolstered my personal failing confidence in the studio. This was, unfortunately, short-lived. April 27th came and went without a peep from Metabuff. This was, of course, the date that they had set for their Alpha. Not only was there no Alpha announcement, the studio seemingly went dark on all communication. They apologized for the delayed Alpha, did not release a new date, and promised to continue working on the game. I'll touch on where they are now later on, but Core, who was, at one time, by far the most popular and seemingly stable Paragon 2 project, effectively leaves the story at this point. In May of 2019, we learned of a new project that claimed to be much further along than either predecessor or Core. This was Project Agora, Agora with an H on the end. I looked into these guys and they struck me as just some kids that were in a little bit over their heads. I figured I'd keep an eye on them in case anything exciting came about. Unfortunately, the news from them was that they were taking donations. After I learned about that, I did a video explaining why I felt that they were probably a scam company set up to prey upon Paragon nostalgia. They confirmed my suspicions by shutting down, restarting with a new name and website, and the only functional thing about that website was the donation button. This was the last we heard from them, and good riddance. This brings us to November of 2019, where I started to hear of a new project that also seemed too good to be true. I get a lot of shit from my initial reservations about Strange Matter and their resurrection project called Fault, but you do need to remember that this was only tales of the whole Project Agora debacle. I contacted Strange Matter to see if they would be interested in conducting an interview. Much to my surprise and delight, they agreed and asked if I would like to play the game while asking my questions. And they delivered. My first interaction with Fault was playing the actual game against real players with functional minions and towers. This was a much needed injection of invigoration into our downtrodden community. November also saw the introduction of a Korean developer that would later be known as Team Soul Leave. However, it wasn't overprime that they were working on, it was Prime X. Prime X used the Paragon Heroes, but was not slated to be a MOBA. They were calling it a Prime Dunk Royale. And I still don't fully understand what it was supposed to be. I do believe they still have this concept going in the background, but Team Soul Leave is currently far more well known in our community as the developers of OverPrime. December of 2019 saw the first open alpha test for Fault. Strange Matter had 10,000 slots available for pretty much anyone to come test the game. They also started crowdfunding via Indiegogo with Alpha Keys as one of their tiers. Strange Matter added Sylph into their team who had left core at some point, further cementing themselves as the real deal. This is when Rocketmania, the guy that made overthrow join Team Soul Leave, they released an announcement saying that they didn't feel that any of the company's remaking Paragon were doing a great job and that they would be stepping into the ring. Prime X went to the wayside and OverPrime, a Paragon Resurrection project, became the company's focus. The first I was able to step into OverPrime was March of 2020. Soul Leave came out swinging with a much larger roster than any of the other games, a legacy map, travel mode, and the Prime Dunk mechanic. The game was far from perfect and had many elements of overthrow in it, but it was a great start. In the March-April 2020 timeframe is when Strange Matter announced that they would start their paid early access beginning on May 8th. People that donated via their Indiegogo campaign would also be considered as having already bought in. Final release of the game would still be free to play. Strange Matter did not make that date, something that we're all getting very used to, unfortunately. June of 2020 we started hearing a bit from Omeda Studios with Predecessor as they were pulling people in that had Alpha Keys to play test the improved version of their game, but it wasn't until July that we got a solid Alpha for the community. People lucky enough to get a key were able to play and this time around it was widely viewed as a huge success as they had fixed the issues that plagued their first Alpha. July also saw the inclusion of a monolith map for OverPrime. This was something the Paragon community had been wanting forever, the choice between playing on monolith or legacy. July was also when we finally got false early access. The launch was plagued by technical issues with Steam, Alpha Keys from Indiegogo not working, as well as a variety of new bugs within the game. Although they got off to a rocky start, Strange Matter has continued to improve the game, adding new heroes to their lineup and patching in various bug fixes, balance changes and new features. Fault has been, by far, the most stable and accessible Paragon Resurrection project. To this date it's the only one that you can download from Steam and reliably find a match with other players. This is where the story of major updates to Fault ends as they are a stable game that's available to anyone willing to pay for early access. The next big updates that we're currently looking forward to from Strange Matter are a full release of the final product and hopefully, console release in the future. In October of 2020, predecessor held another Alpha test with the addition of more heroes and items. This was slated to be the final closed Alpha before the game goes into open testing. No word yet on when that will be, but they promise to improve the map and add in new heroes. During this timeframe, I'm not exactly sure when, we finally got an update from Metabuff about what was going on with Core. They have decided to switch from a Parazombie to a third person MOBA of their own creation using their own intellectual property. That brings us to February of 2021 where Over Prime released a one lane ARAM map for their very much improved game. Team Soul Leaf has also announced the backing of publisher Netmarble. The next big news we expect from them is Steam release of the game. And that's where we currently sit. Out of all of that, we have Strange Matter and Fault coming in late to the party, but being the first to release what I consider to be an actual sustainable game. Omega Studios, a company that started in the shadows of the Metabuff Juggernaut, have outlasted Core and Forged Pass that have failed initial Alpha. And have had several very successful closed tests. Team Soul Leaf, aided by Rocket Mania, have financial backing and a greatly improved product that really only needs Steam release to be considered a success. Is this where I thought we would be at this point? Hell no. If you asked me back when this all started where I thought the games would be in 2021, I would have said that Core and predecessor would be in full release with possible console ports. I would have thought Phoenix Rising would be playable. I never would have guessed that Strange Matter would come out of nowhere and take the lead with these games. And I would have thought that Rocket Mania would have moved on from overthrow. I guess he did, but I mean he's working with Over Prime now, so it's kind of the same. So what have I learned? Well, I'll tell you what I've learned. I've learned pessimism. Never take any update from anyone at face value. Look forward to whatever they announce, but don't expect it to actually happen until it does. Things that look great on the surface may be in the process of rotting from the inside. But I've also learned optimism. Never underestimate the power of the dedicated fan base. I've learned that there's an entire community of people out there just like me that love the dog shit out of Paragon to the point of obsession. Good faith is sometimes rewarded and these games really do have a future. That's all I have for now. I tried to be as complete as possible with this history of projects, but I'm sure I left something or other out. Please let me know what I missed in the comments below. Like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video, but for now, this is the man goose signing off. You guys have a good one. Man Goose!