I escaped from the original Path of Exile after a few hours. There was nothing wrong with the game – it felt like the natural evolution of Diablo with more player expression and less restrictions for your character – but its builds system and understanding how all its mechanics were connected to each other were just too much for me.
It’s not impossible to get into Path of Exile and have fun by any means, I just couldn’t give it the time it deserved back then. It was like learning a new language, and I simply didn’t have the bandwidth.
In my defense, I already learned to play mahjong through the Yakuza games, so it’s clear that I can spend dozens of hours learning something when I’m invested in it.
When Path of Exile 2 was shown off during events, I began to feel nervous and excited at the same time. ‘This game looks so sick,’ was a recurring thought in my mind after each trailer, but I was also wondering how hard developer Grinding Gear Games would go with the sequel’s new systems. There was a funny moment during the Opening Night Live show, where Path of Exile 2 was shown some minutes before Diablo 4’s new expansion. I liked Diablo 4, but the preview paled in comparison to PoE 2 in every regard, especially on a visual level.
At Gamescom, I sat down with game director Jonathan Rogers to see what’s new via a hands-on demo. He started by introducing me to a late level mercenary, one of the new classes. I was able to try several skills right away, and I was surprised by the number of different ways I could shoot projectiles with just a crossbow – you can use it as a shotgun, a submachine gun, a sniper, an assault rifle, and a grenade launcher that freezes enemies, just to name a few.
Rogers’ explanation continued with the gem systems. You can learn new skills and gain buffs or mods by applying gems into empty slots in a menu. Finding the best synergy between a specific ability and a gem seems to be key to building a menacing character. For example, a gem lets you trigger any ability twice, and another one adds explosive properties.
The cool part about this gem system is that you have several slots for each of your unlocked skills, so you’ll be spending a good chunk of your time experimenting with the mechanic. If this wasn’t enough, you can also learn any skill from any of the other eleven classes available, which makes things complicated, but also interesting.
However, I almost fell from my chair when Rogers showed me the gargantuan skill tree that our mercenary had. Even zooming out as far as I could, all the nodes with skills couldn’t fit on the screen at the same time. It was completely ridiculous, and slightly terrifying.
The demo continued with another character. This time, Rogers showed a late-game Barbarian in a dungeon. I saw him summoning hammers from the sky, running in straight lines and creating explosions after a short delay, activating buffs that make the character faster, and some simple but satisfying melee combat. It looks fun as hell, and also remarkably detailed on a visual level.
After a few minutes, Rogers says that I can go and start a new game from the beginning with any of the available classes – he recommends the sorcerer for newcomers. So I jump into Path of Exile 2 for 40 minutes with a female sorcerer and I end up falling in love. With the game that is, not the sorceress supreme.
The starting moments of the game are not only far more approachable than what I’d have expected, but also really engaging. In a matter of minutes, I switch from using elemental magics like electric bolts, a fire wall, and a freezing explosion to the summoning of undead creatures lending a hand. I found a few gems with some minor effects that slightly altered some skills, perfect for first contact with the mechanic without diving too deep into it. I explored a small village, a dark forest, and some caves, and I became amazed by the variety of encounters and enemy designs I met in less than an hour of playtime.
Rogers says that the team knows how overwhelming the original Path of Exile was for newcomers, so they took the onboarding process very seriously in the sequel. It shows. I never felt exhausted once, and I knew what I was doing most of the time. All the tutorial windows, every mechanic’s explanation, and the control scheme were clear. You’ll spend some time reading, organizing your equipment, and checking your loot, but that’s only natural in an action RPG. The important thing is that you can keep up with everything going on, without any complex or obnoxious system making things harder than they should.
I’m sure that things will get tougher and more complicated as I make progress through the campaign when the game launches, but so far I’m delighted with everything I have seen from Path of Exile 2. It plays great, it looks amazing, and its freedom and versatility feels like what Diablo should have integrated a long time ago, but continues to fail to do. I just can’t wait to get lost in this new world.
