I knew I would soon be opening an Excel spreadsheet and bidding farewell to all of my loved ones for the foreseeable future after just one hour of playing the early access edition of Path of Exile 2. With a sequel to one of my all-time favorite action role-playing games, which has already taken up a significant portion of my life since its release ten years ago, the callous madmen at Grinding Gears Games have dragged me back in just when I thought I was done. Even though it has many of the typical “early access jank” restrictions and has some extremely sparse loot drops at the moment, there is already a lot to enjoy about this amazing, time-wasting ARPG. The gameplay, endgame mechanics, and incredibly complex build crafting all take huge leaps forward.
Due to your incredibly limited inventory capacity, you may anticipate spending your time blasting your way through hordes of foes in pursuit of loot, defeating large, repulsive monsters, and then teleporting back to town to sell off your spoils around every two minutes. It requires roughly 60 hours of fighting your way through the campaign’s first three acts (out of a planned six) twice in a row (on a harder difficulty the second time) before you reach the incredibly large endgame, which is filled with even more irate mobs and shiny equipment. The majority of my multi-day journey to get there was incredibly pleasurable, although it has a lot of technological jank and placeholders marked “coming soon” where functionality should be.
Path of Exile 2 does not exactly break the mold when it comes to storytelling; it continues the standard plot of terrifying monsters that threaten to wipe out the world and immortal beings using mortals as puppets, but that does not mean it is uninteresting or devoid of unexpected turns. One of the highlights is getting to know the characters and learning about the unearthly history and culture that are depicted in each act. Learning about the Maraketh, a vicious tribe of desert survivalist nomads, was fascinating, and I developed a strong affection for Alva, a treasure seeker who enjoys adventure almost as much as she enjoys making hasty getaways whenever danger arises. There is still uncertainty about whether the second part of that story will succeed or fail, but thus far, it has gotten off to a respectable, if not unique, start.
Despite its cautious approach to the plot, Path of Exile 2 aims high for its ambitious gameplay, making it one of the most captivating action RPGs to date. After selecting one of the six classes that are now offered (Grinding Gear claims that there will eventually be twelve), you will begin the lengthy and difficult process of figuring out their incredibly intricate skill trees. As you gradually put together a build you like, they almost seem to have been intentionally made to be sardonically dense. All it takes is a glance at the primary passive perk tree, which offers more than 1,500 perks, to realize that you are going to be wearing nerd glasses a lot.
After that, you will use those skills and gear to battle a variety of zombies and strange lizard creatures in a never-ending quest for treasure and experience points that, if you are as excited as I am to crack open the next meaty piñata to discover what is within, is likely to keep you up late. You risk losing yourself for at least a week, as I did when you combine the procedurally produced maps’ high level of replayability with the fact that they manage to avoid feeling unhandcrafted.
Every class has a different style of play that drastically changes things up.
Slashing through hordes of monsters is made endlessly entertaining by several gameplay improvements over Path of Exile 2’s predecessor. These include dodge-rolling, which adds a crucial skill component to staying alive, WASD support, which greatly improves movement, and other quality-of-life enhancements that put Path of Exile 2 much more in line with its contemporary peers. However, it also outperforms them in many aspects, with action-packed combat that feels far less passive than, say, Diablo 4, where you can find yourself repeatedly employing the same set of skills as you slay monsters. In boss encounters, when you must understand your opponent’s attack patterns to live, adversaries will almost always at least put up a fight, however, you can eventually reach an absurd level of power. Compared to most action RPGs, this makes battle feel much more like a legitimate action game.
One advantage is that, in contrast to other ARPGs, each class offers a distinct style of gameplay that drastically changes things up. Choosing the Dexterity-focused Ranger, for instance, will require you to dance around the map, keep your distance, and, most importantly, concentrate on your Evasion stat, which allows you to completely ignore attacks that come at you. However, if you ever do manage to get hit by something large, like a boss, you are doomed. On the other hand, if you go with a Warrior, you will get into close combat with the thickest armor you can get and concentrate on cutting the enemy in two before they can deplete your health.
The entire adventure is effectively transformed into a top-down shooter that feels significantly different from any other character when the Mercenary trades in his sword for a crossbow. As for me, I mostly used my time as a Witch to develop minions that let my thrall fight for me, so I frequently just stood by my undead friends and shouted encouraging words. I have not seen any of Path of Exile 2’s competitors attain that degree of gameplay variety.
There are roughly a dozen extremely complicated systems to learn if you want to master your character, which is great news in this case. These include your skill and support gem load-outs, the Atlas perk tree and Ascendancy tree (two endgame trees with even more effects to consider), your skill and support gem load-outs, and your overall equipment loadout. The passive perk trees are particularly complicated. ARPGs are all about slogging through incredibly complex menus in quest of the most potent conceivable combination of stats when you choose to play them more than casually, and Path of Exile 2 excels at this even more than its predecessors.
If, like me, you are into that nerdy business, it may take some time (actually quite a long time) to figure out how each piece of the puzzle works, especially if you are jumping in early before the hardcore crowd gets hold of it and develops step-by-step recipes you can follow. However, if you do, it makes for an amazing time. The fact that not all skill trees have been completed makes it a little annoying to play the early access version at this time. You might wish to pursue a particular build or power, only to discover that it is still merely a dream in the minds of the designers. For instance, that can imply that you are unable to buy support skills to enhance and diversify your build.
However, Path of Exile 2’s loot is where it fails. It is extremely frugal with them, not because the stuff you acquire is horrible (for instance, it was lovely to find a scepter that allowed my Witch to summon even more zombie minions). The first problem is that there does not seem to be any safeguard to make sure the loot that drops is appropriate for your class. Even if it is, it is usually not good or compatible with your build because you will usually need very specific equipment to make it better. It took me more than 60 hours to see the first Unique (a strong, carefully chosen tier of things) drop, and when I did, it was a bow that my magic-focused character could not use. Even while you may always trade with other players to get the stuff you need, it still feels terrible to work hard and not get anything in return, especially if you like to avoid social interaction.
Verdict
Path of Exile 2 is already looking like the follow-up we have been waiting for at its early access debut. Even while the setting seems a little typical in the context of dark fantasy worlds, half of the plot that we currently have shows a lot of potential, and everything from the refined basic action RPG gameplay to the shockingly fleshed-out endgame has undergone significant changes. Although the drawbacks of playing in early access include the fact that you will need to grind through all three acts twice to reach the endgame, the loot game needs significant improvement to more reliably reward us with usable items, and some mild-to-severe technical wonkiness that could ruin your day if something goes wrong, none of these issues worry me about the future of this massive sequel. Path of Exile 2 is already a fantastic way to kill dozens of hours and a definite step forward for the series, even as we wait for 1.0.
