Paladins

## PaladinsChampions of the Realm

**Paladins *Champions of the Realm*** is a free-to-play, online-multiplayer, fantasy class-based first-person shooter developed by Evil Mojo Games (development studio under the Hi-Rez Studios publishing group). The game launched out of beta on May 8th, 2018 with version 0.70.2610.3 and later with the major A New(er) Frontier - 1.0b Update.

The game is rooted in a colorful fantasy setting featuring Champions, playable characters that have their own unique fire-function and skills. Combat in each game mode is also nearly entirely skillshot-based, meaning projectiles can be dodged. Although each champion has their own personality and abilities, to get around Paladins' maps, the real character variation comes from the cards and item systems that augment a champion in different ways.

Closed beta phase began on November 17, 2015. The game officially went into open beta on September 16th, 2016. An Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game entered their closed beta phases on March 14th, 2017. Both of these ports went into open beta on May 3, 2017. Paladins launched out of beta on all platforms on May 8th, 2018. After that, Paladins was released on June 12, 2018 for Nintendo Switch, as well as for the PlayStation 5 on November 12th, 2020 via backwards compatibility.

“
Welcome to Paladins, the free-to-play fantasy team-based shooter sensation! Join over 30 million players to become a legendary Champion of the Realm, customizing your core set of abilities to play exactly how you want to play.

 Knife-wielding assassins, Abyssal demons, and time-travelling soldiers - Paladins features over 40 playable Champions across 4 unique roles.
 Ancient Goddess. Interstellar bounty hunter. Cutthroat pirate. Frost giant. You can be all of these and more in Paladins. Choose from hundreds of skins already available in Paladins or find a new favorite in each update.

 No matter what your playstyle is, you’ll find it in Paladins. With Paladins' deckbuilding system, you can become an iron sights sniper, a grenade-slinging explosives expert, or a track star with an assault rifle – all as the same Champion. Choose from dozens of cards to customize your abilities and make each Champion your own.

”

## What is Paladins?

### Free To Play

Paladins is a free to play title, available for download on Steam, Epic, PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox One/Series consoles. There are 7 permanently free Champions (playable characters), as well as 8 additional Champions on rotation, which can be played right after the first log-in.

### The Setting

Paladins takes place in a fictional Realm, inhabited by various fantastical races and groups. From Humans to Elves, Tigrons to Leipori, there are many types of beings who live in the Realm. There are also factions, from the political Magistrate to the scrappy Resistance, the angelic Pyre and the corrupted Abyss, and cosmic horrors known as the Maw. Of course, the namesake Paladins are also a group in this vast world.

### Class-Based

Paladins is a team-based shooter, where champions are assigned and placed in one of four classes players can choose from -  **Damage**,  **Flank**,  **Front Line** and  **Support** - all having unique roles to fulfil in a match.

## Game information

### Champions

Champions are the characters you will play in Paladins, each with their own abilities and weapons that define how they can best be used. We divide them into aforementioned Classes in order to help guide players to how they should be utilized. As you play a Champion, you will increase their Mastery Level, with certain levels unlocking rewards, such as Talents, and Golden Skins.

Every Champion has a unique weapon, alongside a set of abilities they can use on set cooldowns, and an Ultimate ability that passively charges over the course of a match. In order to earn more Ultimate charge, players should play their roles (earn Eliminations, heal allies) to increase its recharge rate. Once earned, you can activate it for a team-fight altering effect, then begin to earn your next Ultimate.

Each Champion has 3 Talents, as well as three pre-made Loadout filled with 5 Cards each, which you select at the start of the match, each of which provides a different effect to your abilities that can evolve your playstyle. You’ll start out with 1 Talent and can unlock the others by playing the Champion. Loadouts can also be edited, with the three extra slots in the Loadouts menu.

### Items

Items allow you to further customize your playstyle mid-match in order to counter and adapt to your opponents. You are allowed to own 4 different items per game, for a maximum of 12 tiers of upgrades per match. You can mix categories or buy all of one, the choice is up to you.

See here for more information.

### Modes

In Paladins, there are various Game Modes players can choose to play; Siege, Onslaught, Team Deathmatch, and Limited Time Modes, which includes the semi-permanent Payload. There is also a competitive-focused mode named Ranked which is a variant on Siege.

## Development

The first iteration of what would eventually became Paladins first began development in 2012, with the game being known as "AU: Aurum" at the time, or by its codename, "Chaos", a third-person shooter game, similar to Hi-Rez's other title, Global Agenda, though set in a fantasy world. The game was constantly changing though, with the developers essentially playing an entirely new game every single day during development. While the initial goal was to set the game in a fantasy world, the sci-fi theme of Global Agenda was additionally experimented with, though the fantasy direction ultimately won out, with the developers additionally using assets from another Hi-Rez game, Smite. The game wouldn't reach a state the developers were satisfied with until much later, finally showing an early alpha version of Paladins off in August 2015.

However, almost a year prior to Paladins first being shown off, another game would be announced; Overwatch, which sparked its own controversy from everything to character and feature copying. According to the developers, Paladins was already so far along and similar to Overwatch, the developers were worried about having to compete with Blizzard. Supposedly, some changes were initially planned in order to differentiate the game more from Overwatch, but apparently internal testing indicated players preferred the original version of the game, leading to the developers deciding to go with their original plan, and as mentioned, showed Paladins off for the first time around a year later.

More information can be found in this stream.

## Platforms

The PC version of Paladins can be downloaded either through Steam or the Epic Games Store. The console versions can be acquired for free through their respective online stores: Microsoft Store and PlayStation Store.

Cross-play and cross-progression were implemented with the release of the 2.2 update allowing players from PC, and Xbox to play together. With the release of the 2.7 update PS4 players could also join the fight with Cross-play. For more information about this implementation, you can access the FAQ page here.

## PC specifications

**MINIMUM:**

* OS: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
* Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz
* Memory: 4 GB RAM
* Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
* Storage: 30 GB available space
* Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card

**RECOMMENDED:**

* OS: Windows 8/10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
* Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz
* Memory: 6 GB RAM
* Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or ATI Radeon HD 7950
* Network: Broadband Internet connection
* Storage: 30 GB available space
* Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card

## External links

Website

Discord

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Subreddit

Twitch

YouTube

## Trivia

* Various early concepts from throughout Paladins' development can be seen here showing a number of fantasy and sci-fi based concepts, as well as early designs of Fernando, Pip, Ruckus, and potentially other characters such as Barik, Cassie, Evie, Skye, and Ying, though these latter characters may just resemble the early concepts rather than being based on them.
* Extremely early gameplay footage of "Aurum", what would eventually become Paladins, can be seen here.
	+ Videos of the beginnings and the feedback of the first players can be seen here.

**Other Games**Paladins Strike  •  Realm Royale Reforged  •  China Edition
**Other**Crossovers  •  Community Skin Contest  •  Merchandise

1. ↑ https://www.paladins.com/news/new-returning-player-guide
2. ↑ Max Davenport on ArtStation
3. ↑ Francisco Cruz on ArtStation