I was pretty blown away by what I played of Path of Exile 2 on PS5. The astute among you are probably picking up a little hint of surprise in that statement. It's not that I ever doubted developer Grinding Gear Games' capacity to deliver a suitably engrossing action-RPG, but I was worried that such an exceptionally complex experience wouldn't necessarily translate to console – nor overcome the inherent limitations imposed by a controller. I played around five hours of an in-development build and would happily have sat there for another five beyond that – sadly, my packed Summer Game Fest 2024 schedule had other ideas.
So, what was it about Path of Exile 2 that enraptured my attention? Before we get into it, I want to be clear that I came into this session as a wayward Diablo 4 player – someone who loved what Blizzard put down, but have otherwise struggled to stay engaged with the demands of the seasonal model. Maybe I'll never go back. Not when Path of Exile 2 is offering up such a wonderfully distinct gothic visual aesthetic brought to life through exceptionally high-production values, paired with an aggressive combat model and a passive skill tree system so sprawling in scope that it genuinely made me exclaim: "how the **** are they getting away with this?"
Ready for battle
Path of Exile 2 is expected to land in early access for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X later this year, and there is still work to be done to strengthen the stability of the console version. The performance, in particular, was a little uneven, with the framerate having a tendency to hitch as boss encounters spun wildly out of control – the screen filling with hard-hitting enemies, flashing projectives, and debilitating elemental traps. I put that to creative director Jonathan Rogers, and he's defiant in his intention here: "For me, anything less than 60 frames-per-second is a failure."
Sure, he says, there will be a mode that lets you prioritize resolution if you really want to, but that isn't the point: Grinding Gear Games wants to deliver Path of Exile 2 in a state where it's ready to challenge the biggest players in the genre from the moment this free-to-play ARPG is released into the wild. "I think one of the things that we do differently is that we're not really afraid of depth, especially when it comes to the ability to have these really deep systems with lots of interesting things to combine," says Rogers, as we discuss what a Diablo fan could expect here. "Path of Exile was known as this crazy complex game, but we want to attract a much larger audience – so we can't be quite as complex this time."
I feel like we're playing vastly different games. The ability to create these exceptionally varied class builds is difficult to grasp after such a lean play-session, but jumping in as a Sorceress (one of six new classes launching alongside six returning archetypes) I soon began to understand the potential. Pumping points into my DPS soon took me in highly specialized directions, and it wasn't long before my glass-cannon was transforming into this expressive, capable spell-caster. There appears to be over a thousand nodes to invest in, so I barely scratched the surface of what's possible. I told Rodgers that it reminded me of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy 10 – "ha, that was definitely an inspiration!"
"For me, anything less than 60 frames-per-second is a failure."
Jonathan Rogers
Something that's easy to lose sight of when talking about such a complex buildcraft system is that Path of Exile 2 is actually relatively good at onboarding new players – although some familiarity with the action-RPG genre will likely be required. Still, the item system is clear and communicative, so too is the leveling journey and the way skills are deployed and upgraded. Accommodations are in place to quickly rebind your hotbars with new abilities when wielding a controller, and succeeding in combat is as simple as executing attacks with face-buttons and remembering to roll away from danger. Now, thriving in encounters is a different prospect altogether.
What I'd really like you to understand about Path of Exile 2 is that it's an exceptionally aggressive experience. Where Diablo 4 has this thunderous forward momentum – allowing you to thrash through scores of demons with little consternation throughout the core campaign – Path of Exile 2 constantly had me backpedaling. Enemies are relentless, and even the lowliest of creatures are capable of carving huge chunks out of your health pool with single attacks. Think of it this way: the enemies in Diablo 4 want to furnish you with new items and equipment, but every aggressor in Path of Exile 2 wants to kill you dead as quickly as possible. It's wildly entertaining once you settle into its rhythm.
"The thing I was sick of," Rogers continues, "was going to forums and seeing people post: 'I tried Path of Exile and I thought the combat was bad.' I never wanted to see that again. I wanted us to have a game where the combat was actually good – where, like an action game, you could pick it up and even the basic combat would feel good. That's something I don't think Path of Exile 1 had." He adds: "Ultimately, overhauling the combat systems was the driving purpose behind why Path of Exile 2 even exists." Well, that and a whole lot of feature-creep after a planned expansion went awry, but that's a story for a different day.
The countdown is on
Anyway, the fluidity of combat, combined with the need to be constantly moving, weaving, and rolling out of attacks to survive does have this more traditional action combat interpretation to it. Dare I even say it – a Soulsian feel to it. No, I'm not going to do that to you. I would never do that to you. So instead, I just want to touch on that aggressive edge to encounters again. I think it's drawn out of the decision to not lock ability deployment behind cooldowns – you're free to attack as you want to, so long as you have the resource reserves to do it. "That's one of the reasons monsters are so threatening, otherwise you'd just stand there on the spot spamming attacks – which you can do," Rogers laughs, "but it will lead to your death."
I know that it's still early days, and that there's a lot of game left for me to see, but I'm glad that Path of Exile 2 will exist as a console entity. It's shaping up to be a compelling alternative to Diablo 4 – not to mention the Grim Dawns and Last Epochs of this world – and one all action-RPG fans should be paying attention to. It's set to land in early access later this year, and while there's still plenty of refinement of systems and performance to be done, the bones are clearly strong. And with cross-play and cross-progression planned, and couch co-op surprisingly solid in spite of the chaos this game so routinely spawns, I'd say that Path of Exile 2 has quickly become an experience I'm eager to dive back into with friends.
Go check out all of the latest news, interviews, and hands-on reporting coming out of Summer Game Fest 2024.
