Epic's Shooty MOBA Paragon Boots Up GRIM.exe

The MOBA rush has passed the point of straight-up copying DotA and LoL, and moved into the more interesting phase of lifting bits and easing them into other genres. Unreal and Gears of War creator Epic's own crack at this is Paragon [official site], merging MOBA and third-person shooter (Monday Night Combat was ahead of its time, man). Paragon will be free-to-play eventually and launches into open beta this summer, but right now it's in paid early access. Epic are still adding new characters every few weeks, and the latest is here: a robot named GRIM.exe with a fairy buddy.

GRIM.exe arrived in a patch this week. He's a ranged character with a ganky playstyle, blessed with abilities including shots that slow enemies, a grenade which bumps people around, and an ultimate launching a honking great homing energy blast. Here's an overview of all his abilities:

But tch! What's with that pronunciation of his name? That... that's not how you meant to pronounce it, is it? Did we have a column pronounced 'SEXEX'? I think I'd be okay with that. SEXEX! That's the name of my new Ex Hex cover band.

If you want into Paragon right now, Founder's Packs start at $19.99.

For more shooty action, this was a big whole livestream to celebrate GRIM's launch this week and this short vid has longer gamepay snippets:

Paragon's visual design looks off to me. GRIM.exe is a gorilla-ish robot who walks upright and is followed by a winged beastie straight out of a 'twisted fairytale' toy range from the '90s (owners would insist it's not a toy, it's a collectible figurine) who holds and hand-cranks a generator to power his buddy. I'm not sure what or why.