Paladins Steam Early Access Skyrockets
Hi-Rez Studios announced that the first ever Paladins Invitational, to be held at Hi-Rez Expo January 5-8 2017, will include not only teams from North America and Europe but also teams from Brazil, Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, and China. Hi-Rez Studios’ new fantasy themed team based shooter Paladins recently transitioned into Open Beta including Early Access availability on Steam. Within the first week of Early Access Paladins rocketed into Steam’s Top 10 Games by player count and the Paladin’s global community is growing rapidly.
Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios co-founder and COO, spoke about the game, sayinG:
“The Paladins Open Beta had an explosive first weekend with well over 100,000 new accounts created in the first 24 hours. We’ve also seen a very strong interest in Paladins from competitive players and esports organizations worldwide and are therefore extending the Paladins Invitational to include more regions and more teams”
Hi-Rez Studios global partners Level Up, Double Jump, and Tencent will be overseeing regional tournaments in Brazil/Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, and China respectively to determine which teams from those regions will make their way to the $150,000 Paladins Invitational in Atlanta, Georgia. The opening matches of the Paladins Invitational will feature 8 teams battling it out to see who eventually makes it to the finals and the ultimate crowning of the best Paladins team in the world will be broadcast live from the Cobb Energy Center.
Describing the world of the game, Hi-Rez Studios have said:
“Enter a fantasy world of ancient technology in Paladins, a team-based shooter with strategy elements and deep character customization. Through a unique collectible card system, players can amplify and augment a character’s core set of abilities to play exactly how they want to play.”
The game recently got its Open Beta, with Harris talking about the game and its history, saying:
“Since the start of closed beta late last year we’ve been refining the core gameplay and the overall user experience. Paladins is a team shooter with a fantasy setting, a sense of humor, and a high degree of customization and strategy. Paladins is now and always will be free-to-play and with our move to Open Beta anyone can download the game from the Paladins website or Steam. We look forward to continuing to shape and improve the game with an even larger community.”