Path of Exile 2 is a bold, blood-soaked sequel unchained from the first game’s old school design
The action RPG sequel has been a long time coming, and it’s a bolder departure than we expected.
Path of Exile 2 now proudly stands on its own two gore-stained legs.
Not that it was a weak game when I played its first demo version at Exilecon in 2019—but five years ago it was just more (but prettier) Path of Exile, a game I like. A lot. At the time it was meant to be a massive expansion for the popular F2P action RPG, the two campaigns separate but dovetailing into a shared endgame. PoE2’s scope and ambition have since completely outgrown that old design, and the end result plays very differently from its predecessor.
Now a fully standalone game and due for a (fully featured, endgame and all) beta release later this year, I got to play the first four hours of it at a press event in LA, primarily as the projectile-centric ranger. The melee-heavy warrior and element-slinging sorceress were also available, three of a planned 12 base classes in the full game. Despite some technical issues, my first wish is that I could have played at least another four hours.
Kindred souls
This is pure gothic horror fantasy, wet, squelchy and rotten. From playing the first of six acts alone (the later ones seem to be even more fantastical), the variety of environments puts Diablo 4‘s samey overworld to shame. Dark woods filled with pouncing werewolves, ruins patrolled by cackling crones that summon demonic, dungaree-clad children to claw at you and pelt you with stones. Sunset-lit farmlands, burning villages and graveyards and mausoleums packed with skellingtons, undead knights and weirder, more corrupted courtly folks, bloated and blood-hungry. If you’ve played the first PoE, the tone is similarly bleak, even if the environments are far more detailed. Moment-to-moment, however, it’s a whole new beast.
Over the past five years Path Of Exile 2 has metamorphosed into a much more Souls-like experience, despite still having strong Diablo roots and procedurally generated maps. It seems reductive to throw around other game names as comparisons but chatting with both other press and even the developers led to the same end thought; this feels like it’s cribbing notes from FromSoftware, in a very good (and challenging) way. Every enemy poses some threat, with most mid-scale monsters dishing out nasty, telegraphed hits. Dodge rolls are essential for avoiding the worst, and the frequent boss battles are multi-phase set pieces full of tricky projectile patterns and moves to dodge.
These are not fights you’re expected to steamroll on your first encounter. Each boss arena has a handy checkpoint near it, allowing you to respawn at no penalty, with your potions restocked and ready for another round. And you’ll be using them, because AoE blasts and targeted shots can wipe out 75% of your health (or more) in a single good hit. Death comes quickly, and healing takes time. One of the few concessions to players is a Sekiro/Armored Core-esque stagger gauge for bosses, buying you a couple seconds to get in some big free hits when it’s filled.
Frequent as they come, from the eight or so bosses I saw in the first act (I reckon I had a few more to find), they’re very varied, too, often preceded with visually distinct environments and unique enemy types. An early boss fight against a giant sandworm-like monster called The Devourer has it burrowing around the edge of the arena, parts of its body staying above ground to act as obstacles or even cover, its head shooting poison projectiles while its tail swats at you with melee attacks, forcing you to keep aware of everything happening in the arena at once.
