Path of Exile 2 has arrived to dethrone all other ARPGs in its early access launch in December 2024. Even as an early-access game, its content has already been shown to be way deeper than that of the rest of the competition. The game borrows several gameplay loops and systems from its previous game, Path of Exile, which ultimately makes Path of Exile 2 similar to the first game, except for the improved graphics. However, Path of Exile 2 is poised to take the throne as the best of all ARPGs, dethroning… well, its predecessor. Here’s a deep-dive review of Path of Exile 2’s early access.
Brief Review Background
While reviews are always subjective, I want to reveal more background for this Path of Exile 2 review. As Path of Exile veterans may know, Path of Exile 2 was originally supposed to replace Path of Exile, but they ultimately changed it to support both as live-service games.
Path of Exile was already largely successful with subsequent leagues, growing yearly for nearly a decade. They didn’t want to risk losing that since they had big changes planned for Path of Exile 2. Since Path of Exile 2 was originally going to replace Path of Exile 1, they had a lot of similar systems. Because of this, veterans of the first game will have a drastically different experience compared to a new player when playing Path of Exile 2.
As someone who played Path of Exile for several thousands of hours, this review will have some critiques based on what made the first game great. As for my experience with Path of Exile 2, I have reached the endgame and have beaten all the bosses. I started my playthrough by experimenting with my own build, Stormweaver Spark. Luckily, it was one of the best builds in Path of Exile 2’s early access, and I had a huge advantage of knowing how Spark works and scales damage through Path of Exile 1.
Related: Path of Exile 2 Class Tier List: All PoE2 Classes Ranked
Path of Exile 2 Campaign Review
Path of Exile 2’s campaign was a truly revolutionary ARPG experience. I expected simple boss fights as they usually save the hard ones for the endgame, where Path of Exile thrives. However, I was shocked to discover how well-designed each boss was. Even the Queen of Filth, who is not even a major boss in the campaign, will forever be ingrained in my head.
Playing Path of Exile 2 felt like I was playing a mix of Elden Ring and Hades, but it was likely due to the complicated boss fights and the difficulty of going through the campaign for the first time. Breezing through the campaign feels almost impossible at the start of the game. You must always read and see what you can switch up to overcome a certain hurdle, which is likely a boss fight.
If you struggle with “x” boss, you start looking at your gear and see what you can change. Do I need more fire resistance specifically for this fight? Is it more effective to run this skill for better single-target damage? Should I start using currency for slight upgrades on gear? You go through all these as you smash the campaign and see what else you can tweak.
The joy of discovering something amazing feels a lot better when there are hundreds or even thousands of options and paths to go through. You’ll surely see your build evolve countless times as you go through the three acts.
The campaign is in a good place where things aren’t too trivial, even when you have things figured out for your build. You can breeze through it with your alts when you get enough currency to gear another character, which is how it is supposed to be. However, this isn’t even the final version of the campaign, as players are forced to go to the Cruel difficulty option and repeat Acts 1 to 3 before reaching the endgame. However, this is only because the next three Acts aren’t ready yet.
Once the campaign is thoroughly finished, assuming it all goes to plan and is released on the 1.0 launch date, it will feel much more fluid as you don’t have to repeat Acts anymore.
Path of Exile 2 Endgame Review
Once you reach the endgame, the game subtly feeds you all the new mechanics while teaching you the main endgame content, Waystones (maps). These Waystones will progressively get harder, giving you better chances for loot or gear as the tiers increase.
Each node or map slightly varies in terms of content. You’ll find hundreds of different monsters, league mechanics like Breach or Expeditions, and may even see the appearance of map bosses.
I can see how these mechanics can get exciting for new players, but players will look for convenience when the game is built around playing thousands of maps.
Players will eventually learn to “juice” maps and figure out that plainly running a map isn’t very efficient. You want to find the right mods, open the right towers, place the perfect tablets, find the right mods for those tablets, add map bosses to more nodes, and so on.
Doing all of this is tedious, and if you don’t do it, it slows down your path to get better gear. The reason why it feels terrible to me might be because I came from Path of Exile 1. It took them several seasons to improve on this system, and they eventually streamlined it by removing the Sextant mechanic in the first game. They replaced them completely through the Scarab system, which drastically modifies your maps.
This change was well-received in Path of Exile 1 and continued for several leagues going forward. You can think of this system as the Lost Tower mechanic in Path of Exile 2 and how it can easily be replaced by a Scarab system or any form of item that can enhance a map.
Removing those crucial extra steps in running Waystones will improve the game’s overall flow, as with the first game. Shockingly, they didn’t implement this, as it was already well-received in the first game. During the past few leagues of Path of Exile, they have experimented with many mechanics that have made their way to Path of Exile 2, like the Currency Exchange.
While it seems that Path of Exile 2 is still far from release, everyone should expect them to come up with hundreds of changes before the release. Historically, Grinding Gear Games has been one of the best developers in introducing new patches and content. Their new season’s patch notes tend to be as long as a short novel sometimes, making them competent and trustworthy, and in the end they’ll churn out the best possible ARPG they can envision.
- Graphically looks stunning.
- Thousands of hours of content for free.
- Best replayability out of any game out there.
- Sky is the limit for its potential.
- Apart from graphically looking better with better bosses, it falls short to overthrow Path of Exile 1.
- Several mundane mechanics and balancing issues.
- While microtransactions are optional, the convenience it brings are immeasurable. Some microtransactions does seem too expensive now.
Published: Jan 22, 2025 11:16 AM UTC