Paragon: Predecessor
Omeda Studios · Shooter, MOBA, Action
Overview
Inspired by the legacy of Paragon, built with love by the community, and powered by Unreal Engine 5, Predecessor is the ultimate fusion of shooter action and MOBA strategy. With more than 30 Heroes to choose from, each with unique and devastating abilities such as shooting through walls, turning invisible and raining down rockets from above, there's more than one way to take down your opponents! Hit your lane and push the enemy objective, taking down towers as you battle to destroy their core all while protecting your own. Predecessor plays like a traditional three lane MOBA, but with genre-redefining elements such as an immersive third-person perspective, high quality graphics and game-changing map verticality.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players mostly like how Predecessor plays and mostly dislike what happens around a match. They describe a revived Paragon with an over-the-shoulder camera, aimed abilities, real verticality and good-looking heroes, and some say it is the first MOBA they enjoyed because they never got on with a top-down camera. Paragon comes up in a third of the longer reviews, mostly from veterans who are glad to have it back and say it plays close to the original or better. Some players coming from Smite or League call it the version of those games they would rather play.
The complaints center on other people and the systems that sort them: matchmaking that throws newcomers against veterans, toxic chat, teammates who go AFK or grief, and new heroes that arrive overtuned. Crashes, disconnects and performance drops after patches come up too, and they hurt more because a crash can earn the player a leaver ban. Queue times and empty regional servers come up in smaller numbers, along with prices in the cosmetics shop. Reviewers from the paid launch period also complain that an early-access bundle could only be refunded in part, a complaint that fades in the reviews written after the game went free-to-play. Plenty of positive reviews carry the same complaints as negative ones, and some negative reviews say the gameplay itself is good.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Paragon brought back to lifeHigh
Paragon is mentioned in 33% of the longer reviews, more often than any complaint in this report. Returning players mostly talk about the familiar feel ("Paragon is back like it never left," one wrote), and some say the revival matches or improves on the original. Other veterans are less happy. They miss Paragon's card system, the original Legacy map or particular hero kits, and say reworked characters such as Kallari no longer feel the same. A few compare it unfavourably with the other Paragon revivals. Paragon talk fades over time: it appears in 53% of the longer reviews written in 2022 and 24% of those written in 2026, as more players arrive with no history with the original.
Third-person combat that makes MOBAs clickHigh
Reviewers who praise the fighting point to the over-the-shoulder camera, aimed abilities and vertical map. One wrote: "I hate topdown, so a MOBA (i.e DOTA, LOL) in 3rd person with verticality has been amazing." Another: "Always wanted to enjoy playing a moba but I couldn't get use to the top down view". Fans call the combat smooth, satisfying and responsive, and players with shooter backgrounds say their aim carries over. The combat has critics too. They find movement sluggish, say auto-attacks feel weightless, or say some ranged heroes lock on while others have to aim. A few PC players say the controls were built for controllers.
Good-looking heroes and mapsMedium
Graphics, animations and character design get steady praise, sometimes in a line as short as "Phenomenal game! Most beautiful MOBA". A smaller group finds the look generic, blurry or murky, and a few dislike the newer character designs.
Best played with friendsMedium
One short positive review reads, in full, "Fun but best with friends!" Players who queue with a group report a far better time, and several negative reviews say they would only recommend it to someone with a full five-stack, since that avoids the random teammates described below.
Where players are split
Updates, new heroes and the direction of the gameMedium
Fans praise the pace of development: monthly or near-monthly heroes, balance passes and new modes, with one saying "the game has balance and content updates/patches more often than any live service game I've played". Some returning players say it improved a lot ("i didn't like the game in early access but it's pretty fun now."). Others say specific patches made things worse. They point to the six-item change, augments and newer high-mobility heroes, which they say turned a strategic MOBA into a teamfight brawl: "6 Item patch completely ruined a year of balancing and it turned from a fun team oriented MOBA into a super fast team deathmatch with no strategy at all". Some say each update also brings new performance problems.
How friendly it is to MOBA newcomersMedium
Some first-time MOBA players say this is the one they could get into, with autobuy, lane hints and the third-person view lowering the barrier: "Great entry level moba relatively user friendly compared to other mobas." Other newcomers describe thin tutorials, practice modes locked until the account levels up, and early matches against far more experienced players. One negative review sums up the reception as "Toxic community, not friendly to beginners."
Items versus Paragon's cardsLow
The traditional item shop and autobuy split former Paragon players. Some welcome the change ("I like how they changed the item system from the cards that Paragon had."), and others want the cards back ("BRing the cards back. the item system is ass."). A few say every hero ends up on the same meta build.
Console crossplay and controller aim assistLow
Some PC players welcome the bigger player pool that crossplay brings. Others say console players drag matches down, want a way to opt out ("cant turn off crossplay on pc so you have to play with console players. i dont like that."), or say controller aim assist is too strong ("Aim Assist is waaaay to over tuned").
What frustrates players
Lopsided matchmaking and stompsHigh
Matchmaking comes up in 18% of the longer reviews. The complaints describe games decided early by skill gaps, solo players meeting coordinated stacks, smurfs in low ranks, and new accounts landing against veterans: "it pairs you against people with thousands of hours with no equivalent on your own team". Ranked players add that mixed-rank teams make climbing feel random. Some blame the small player pool, and a few say matchmaking improved after the free-to-play launch. Complaints about snowballing and matches that are over within minutes come from the same frustration.
Toxic teammates and chatHigh
Toxicity is named in 16% of the longer reviews, in both positive and negative ones. Players describe abuse over voice and text, particularly aimed at new players: "Got called harmful slurs multiple times within the first hour of playing for making basic mistakes trying to learn." Some positive reviews accept it as normal for the genre and advise muting chat ("Community is toxic but the game is fun."), while negative ones say it drove them away. Toxic talk has a larger share in the longer reviews written in 2026 (21%) than in those from 2024 (14%).
AFK players, leavers and griefersHigh
Teammates who go AFK, quit, feed or troll appear in 15% of the longer reviews, and they take a larger share of the 2026 reviews than of the 2024 ones. One player wrote that "game is PLAGUED with leavers/afkers." Others say reports seem to do nothing and that leavers are not replaced by bots, so the team plays four against five for the rest of a long match. Several suggest an AI takeover for disconnected players and harsher penalties for repeat offenders.
Overtuned heroes and uneven balanceHigh
Balance comes up in a quarter of the longer reviews, and the comments run both ways. The recurring charge is power creep: new heroes launch too strong ("every new character is over powered making it a game of only new characters"), and the same names keep coming up over the years (Khaimera, Countess, Sparrow, Eden, Morigesh, Neon). Players also complain about heavy crowd control and magic damage, and about supports being underpowered. Other reviewers call the balance good for the genre and say the team patches problem heroes quickly.
Crashes, disconnects and performance dropsHigh
Technical problems appear in 15% of the longer reviews, and more often in those written in 2026. Players report crashes on load and in fights, network errors that drop them out of matches and sometimes block rejoining, rubber-banding and lag spikes, frame drops after updates ("New update absolutely ruined my FPS"), shader compilation on first launch and abilities that stop responding. Other players say it runs smoothly even on modest hardware and that they have seen few bugs. Players trade fixes like switching to DirectX 11 or lowering 3D resolution.
Bans for crashes and a strict chat filterMedium
Penalties come up in 9% of the longer reviews. A recurring complaint is being punished for problems the game caused: a crash or network error in champion select or mid-match counts as leaving, and the timeouts escalate ("Server connection is garbage, then you get banned for hours because it disconnects"). Others object to bans for missing a pick timer or stepping away briefly. A separate group says the automated chat filter mutes or bans for mild words ("got banned from chat for 5 days for calling someone a peon").
Long queues, thin population and missing regional serversMedium
Queue and player-count complaints appear in 13% of the longer reviews. In the paid early-access period players reported ten-minute-plus queues and matches full of bots. Later, players in Oceania, Southeast Asia, South America and the Middle East complained of empty queues or high ping ("playing on 130 ping isn't fun"). Players also say queues reset when someone fails to pick a hero, and ranked play draws its own complaints about being limited to certain hours or servers. A few players in North America and Europe report fast queues.
Skin prices and the hero unlock grindMedium
Monetization comes up in 11% of the longer reviews. The specific complaints are high cosmetic prices ("The skins cost wayyyyy too much money."), recolors sold separately, loot-box style cores, and a per-hero battle pass. Some players also find hero unlocks slow, and one wrote "Unlocking characters takes way too much time and the starting pool is really small so it got boring really fast." A smaller group calls the model fair because heroes can be earned by playing and there is a free hero rotation.
Role selection, surrender votes and team communicationMedium
Players want a role preference before the queue, and say fights over lanes in champion select lead to dodges and throws: "You have to be out of your mind as a MOBA dev to not allow players to select their roles..." Surrender voting frustrates both sides. One player can block a hopeless surrender ("1 person can hold an entire team hostage in surrender vote."), and a team that is winning can still be forfeited by teammates who quit mentally. Others ask for better pings, text chat or voice chat, while some like the ability to turn chat off entirely.
Early-access bundle refundsLow
Reviewers from the paid early-access period say the game could only be bought as a bundle whose DLC part Steam would not refund, so unhappy buyers got a fraction back ("Paid 20 euros , wanted a refund , recieved only 5 euros back"). These complaints date mostly from 2022 and 2023 and fade in reviews written after the game went free-to-play.
Long matchesLow
Some players find standard matches too long for the time they have ("Fun, but the games last way too long."), especially when the outcome is clear early and no one surrenders. Faster modes such as Brawl and ARAM get praise for this reason, and a few players were upset when Brawl was removed.
Menus, shop and HUDLow
A smaller set of reviews criticizes the interface: a cluttered HUD, a shop that is hard to search, missing stats and match history, and menus that are awkward to navigate ("this game has arguably the worst UI/UX of any of them").
One main map and few modesLow
Some players say the single main map gets repetitive and ask for more maps and modes. Others appreciate the seasonal and dynamic map changes added over time.
3. The player conversation
Much of the conversation mixes affection for the game with exhaustion at the online side of it. Thumbs-up reviews often still list matchmaking, toxicity or AFK complaints, and some thumbs-down reviews say the gameplay is good before explaining why they quit. The short reviews include plenty of quick lines like "Paragon is back" or "better than Smite".
Paragon veterans set the early tone and compare everything to the original, from the cards and the Legacy map to how particular heroes play. Players coming from Smite and League judge it against those games and often prefer it. MOBA newcomers praise the camera and accessibility but also write about stomps and abuse in their first matches. Players outside North America and Europe write mostly about ping and queues, and console crossplay brings its own debate about aim assist.
Launch-period reviews in late 2022 and 2023 dwell on the paid early-access bundle, refunds and thin queues. After the free-to-play launch, those complaints give way to matchmaking, balance and the move toward faster, teamfight-heavy play. In the reviews written in 2026, complaints about AFK players and griefing, toxicity, and crashes or lag take a larger share of the longer reviews than in 2024. The share of recommending reviews falls from 74% of those written in 2023 to under two thirds of those written in 2026.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix matchmaking for newer and solo players. Matchmaking comes up in 18% of the longer reviews, mostly as complaints that new accounts and solo players are matched against veterans, smurfs and coordinated stacks, so games are decided in the first minutes.
- Stop penalizing crashes and server disconnects, and let players rejoin. Players report leaver bans after crashes or network errors that the game itself caused, which turns a technical fault into a reason to quit.
- Crack down on AFK players, leavers and griefers, and fill empty slots with bots. AFK and troll teammates take a larger share of the recent reviews, players say reports seem to have no effect, and several ask for an AI takeover when someone leaves.
- Ship new heroes at safer power levels and hotfix outliers faster. Players describe new heroes as overtuned on arrival and name the same dominant heroes across years of reviews.
- Test performance and stability before each patch. Crashes, lag spikes and frame drops after updates rise in the most recent reviews, and players describe specific patches that broke performance on hardware that ran fine before.
- Add role preferences to the queue and rethink surrender voting. Lane fights in champion select cause dodges and throws, and both sides of the surrender vote complain about how it works.
- Improve onboarding and protect early matches. Newcomers praise the design but describe thin tutorials, practice modes that unlock late, and abuse in their first games, which several say drove them away.
- Lower skin prices and speed up hero unlocks. Players who otherwise like the game call cosmetics overpriced and the unlock grind slow, and one suggests cheaper skins would sell more.
