How Worlds in London inspired a UK studio to host its first official Predecessor esports event

In 2016, before Epic Games launched Fortnite, the company was working on another competitive title that time almost forgot: Paragon. 

This third-person MOBA was left by the wayside in favour of Fortnite, but was resurrected as Predecessor a few years ago by London-based Omeda Studios.

The game is essentially Paragon’s spiritual successor. Predecessor’s overall player base has gradually grown to almost 2.5m today, and is available to play on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Microsoft Windows via Steam and Epic Games. 

Predecessor’s community already laid the groundwork through grassroot, fan-led tournaments, but the studio hadn’t made its first official move into competitive play. Until now.

On April 27th, Omeda Studios hosted its first official online tournament, Sunday Showdown, livestreamed on Twitch and featuring four teams of content creators. The teams competed in a knockout format, with best-of-one semi-finals leading into a best-of-three final, backed by a full broadcast team including casters, analysts and a host. 

It was played on Predecessor’s Patch 1.5, which fully dropped after the tournament, and showcased the game’s new hero Wukong. 

Season 1 of Predecessor also launched on April 29th, and features the game’s first multi-patch story arc, with narrative beats unfolding across multiple updates. The first split of Season 1, called Ashes of the Damned, will follow ‘the tragic story of two sisters whose fates are forever changed and twisted by the claws of an ancient and merciless evil’.

Omeda Studios says the esports tournament marks ‘a major milestone’ for the company and the beginning of ‘a serious push into esports’. 

So, why now?

Omeda Studios CEO and Founder, Robbie Singh, told Esports Insider: “Supporting community-driven esports has always been a goal for us at Omeda. We’ve been blown away by the quality of the grassroots tournaments our players have organised, and their passion and dedication have only reinforced our belief in Predecessor’s potential as a competitive esport.

“Now, because of how well Predecessor has been performing since we launched in August last year, we’re in a position where we have a dedicated team to work directly with the community to help put these types of tournaments together, and to create our own official competition as well–which is super exciting!

“This tournament was more creator-focused because we felt like that would be a good first step, but we’re really excited about the plans we have for the future, with something big happening for our next patch in June.”

The game’s updates and improvements are catching the eye of gamers, leading to Predecessor going global with a server opening for South America. 

“We’re seeing more players from all over the world pick up the game, despite Predecessor not having local servers in every region or being localised in their language,” Singh added. “It’s a pleasure to see so much feedback from players in South America who are so happy about this change, and we’ve got plans to open up additional servers in the future.

 “[…] What’s particularly exciting is the momentum this creates as we look to further develop the game and its competitive scene.”

Sunday Showdown saw 20 of Predecessor’s biggest creators participate in the first official tournament for the game. 

Four teams of YouTubers and streamers battled it out live on Twitch to thousands of viewers.  Ultimately, Shinbi’s Ghost Wolves, which featured creators JoeYoursTruly, LitaGames, SurvivorTVPlays, KevKaioken and empresstiramisu, walked away with the crown. 

The team captains were LitaGames, Grizzzly_Gaming, Pap3r and Cozmic.

Event staff also included content creators Liz_A-Death (host), TJDJ and Tang (analysts), plus EGO, Efsixx, Lance and Ritteriffic (casters).

Players included Wangle, Gratty, JoeYoursTruly, MrBuffaloe, Survivor, Ogier, Eldudikoff, NeoVirus, KevKaioken, Soulre4p3r, Rancherito, Schmoovy, Crazzyfool, Justrow and Pinzo. 

While Singh admitted there were ‘some far-from-ideal technical snags’ during the tournament, he said the team has learned a lot from this tournament, and that they’re ‘already putting things in place to improve everything’ for the next one they run.

Omeda Studios’ founder was inspired by the League of Legends Worlds 2024 finals at the London O2 late last year, and wants to see Predecessor take a place on the global esports stage one day. 

“Ever since we started development, I’ve always wanted Predecessor to feel larger than life, and that was only further reinforced when I went to the League of Legends Worlds Final in London,” Singh said. 

“The O2 Arena was filled with 20,000 people, with a bunch of events outside, and the whole experience was just incredible. It really inspired me, because what developer wouldn’t want to have their game being celebrated in that way? That to me is larger than life, that’s the goal that I have in terms of Predecessor being recognised on that scale. 

“It obviously took League and Riot many years to get to that point with live esports events, but with these more grassroots tournaments that we’re now starting to put together, we’re taking small but important steps towards that long-term goal.”

So, what kind of specific esports plans does Omeda Studios have for Predecessor? 

“We have some more plans in the works around future updates that are really exciting,” Singh said. “We have a team who will work alongside creators and the wider community to organise more community tournaments, and develop our own official Predecessor competition. 

“Like with everything that we do, we want to empower our community, as there are so many players that we speak to who are fans of esports, be that playing, broadcasting, organising tournaments or simply watching at home on the weekends. So even for our own streams and videos, wherever possible we look to hire people from the community before trying to fill all those roles ourselves.”

Given the hyper-competitive nature of esports games, could Predecessor become a top-tier competitive title in the future? 

“Obviously, the game comes first – we’re a small team, so we have to be sensible about what we prioritise and when,” Singh replied. “But right up there with that is building the competitive experience together with the players and others in the competitive scene.

“We’ve got some great people here at Omeda who’ve come from places like Riot, and they were really involved in helping their competitive scene get to where it is today, so we’ve got a fair bit of knowledge to draw upon.”

Last but not least, as Omeda is based in London, what does its CEO think about the current state of esports in the UK?

“I’ve spoken to many people in the competitive scene, and there are of course different opinions on things, but one of the things that kind of resonates with me is that there’s something really special here, but that things got kind of artificially boosted with all the investment that came in, which then painted a bit of an unrealistic picture of the industry,” Singh said. 

“There are some great people working on some great events, and I think there’s an exciting future for esports as a whole, but built in a more sustainable way.”

Omeda Studios seems to be well aware that esports can be a volatile industry. There are he well-established titles, and some exciting new games, but many that don’t make it to the top.. So, time will tell whether Predecessor can reach another level in esports, but it’s certainly shown some promise so far.