With a decade’s worth of hype and anticipation to live up to,Path of Exile 2, the sequel to the smash-hit RPG from Grinding Gear Games, not only lives up to the hype, but soars past it. With overhauled graphics, gameplay, classes, abilities and improvements in seemingly every other way imaginable, this is not just a worthy successor toPath of Exile, but an extensively-superior title in nearly every way.
A New Adventure Awaits
These days, when games-as-a-service announce a “sequel,” it can be hard to tell just how much of a change there will actually be (we all hope it will be more than a lackluster expansion, e.g.Overwatch 2). Die-hard fans of the original will be pleased to know that the first installment will still be supported as its own game, and that cosmetics purchased in the first game will actually cross over to the new one. That being said, whilePath of Exile 2is made with the same engine as the original, this is a totally new game in every other aspect.
This is not just a worthy successor toPath of Exile, but an extensively superior title in pretty much every way.
There are set to be a whopping twelve total classes to choose from by the time the game exits early access, and we got to play with six of them:
The most impressive part about the new class system (which we only saw half of, mind you) is that every piece of a class can be mixed with each other. From the get-go, players can elect to unlock abilities from the trees of other classes, and the main skill tree can eventually be built to connect the skills of multiple classes into your own. This makes multi-classing a completely fluid experience, and while it’s optional, it seems like the best builds will make the most of more than one set of skills.
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Another change coming in the sequel is a complete redesign of how items work in terms of rarity and upgrades. Instead of the gem-slot system (which has actually been shifted over to abilities, allowing you to customize AoE and more), items are now upgraded by playing the odds on random rolls. Rarity is upgraded and adds a random new modifier, with more modifiers able to be applied with each upgrade. This is one of the many changes inPath of Exile 2that the developers have made to keep the game accessible for new players (while still being fun for the old fans).
Fighting the Corruption
Gameplay has been upgraded in every way with this new installment, including the implementation of new weapons, abilities and even new ways to play. The standout addition here is the ability to play the entire game in couch co-op, which can be done on both console and PC on release. The game will also have full cross-play and cross-progression implementation at launch, so you can jump from your Steam Deck, to your PS5, and then to your Xbox with the same character progress.
Gameplay has been upgraded in every way with this new installment, including the implementation of new weapons, abilities, and even new ways to play.
Combat has been given a new spark thanks to the emphasis on control schemes outside the point-and-click method (this is still available for all classes, though). We played the majority of the game on controller during our demo, and the responsiveness and weight of attacks was extremely satisfying, especially for this kind of RPG. The developers themselves elected to use WASD controls over mouse-pointer for certain classes, showing off the high-agility characters like the Monk and the Ranger that thrive in situations where they can run freely.
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We died a fair amount during our demo (we were playing single-player only), but never in a way that felt overly unfair or punishing. This is not a souls-like, but itisstill an RPG, so if you come under-prepared, you’re going to have a tough time. Thankfully, there are a ton of different side objectives and quests to spend your time on while trying to level up, made even more fresh by the stunning procedurally-generated environments.
A Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy
Speaking of the procedural generation, the graphical and lighting systems are stunning. It’s not often that an overhead RPG is given this much detail in character and environmental designs, which are made even more impressive once you realize that every single level is a randomly generated grid of tiles. We didn’t even realize that the level designwastile-based until a developer told us, because the environmental details blend together so seamlessly that each area could easily be mistaken for a handcrafted level.
In RPGs, you can usually tell when a wall is about to break or an object is going to be picked up (something about it stands out from the hard-set props in the area).Path of Exile 2shocked us multiple times by revealing seemingly-stagnant objects to actually be fully-moveable entities, whether it be slicing open a cadaver on the wall of a mad scientist’s laboratory, or enemies grabbing chunks out of the surrounding architecture to attack us with.
Path of Exile 2is such a stunning game that we can’t believe it’s going to be free-to-play on release, with a full 25-hour-long campaign (oh yeah, the story is great too) and a hefty amount of post-game material to play through. For now, we’ll be looking forward to the December 6 launch of the early access build, which will be available on both consoles and PC. Early access will feature the first half of the campaign and a huge number of endgame grinds at launch, and will be continuously updated until the official release of the game next year.
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Things don’t always go as planned, and sometimes that’s good. These 7 games were planned to be DLCs but they got so big they became full games.
