Few games have made such an impact with their debut title as Grinding Gear Games has with Path of Exile. Dubbed a Diablo-like (which has become a genre in the decades since the original launch) Path of Exile brought a lot of nuance, an intriguing skill-tree system, and seasonal updates that beckon the player to drive through the meaty campaign once again.
Luckily, I was able to preview Path of Exile 2 — albeit in a ‘toned down’ early access stage — for multiple hours to experience what has changed between PoE and Path of Exile 2. What’s apparent are the great strides the team at GGG has made to make the sequel so much brighter than its predecessor. What Grinding Gear Games has accomplished with the early access version of Path of Exile 2 is more than what full sequels have in double the time, and the sequel has left the impression that I don’t want to be a member of society, I’ll gladly be first in line for exile.
A Dark World, Made Darker
The first thing made readily apparent with Path of Exile 2, is Grinding Gear Games jammed innovation into the sequel. Jonathan Rogers discussed the influence on the art design of the sequel, stating each Act of PoE2 will have artistic design correlated to where the player is in the game. Act I brings with it dark gothic imagery consistent with what players could find in Castlevania, and Act II deploys a more Mesoamerican art style. Rogers says “The reason for that is because the Vaal civilization is inspired by those cultures,” making the connection between the in-game culture directly representative of real-world culture, emphasizing being as close as possible to the source material of each Act.
“Path of Exile 2 has big bad enemies, and they matter.”
These inspirations are felt immediately by starting Act I. The gothic presence of the Hangman’s noose, a poorly constructed set of wooden gallows, and the overwhelming feeling of ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter’ permeate the atmosphere. Although Path of Exile isn’t known for a weighted atmosphere, Path of Exile 2 turns the dial to 11. You truly are an exile. While Acts and landscapes are lush and loaded with inherent details to make the player hearken to details from Ancient History 101 in college, everything feels as dark as possible even when the Sun is switched on.
Where fans may have noticed a porous storyline in the first instalment, Grinding Gear Games has eclipsed the idea of a throwaway storyline and improved PoE2 by including a main one. The mentioned atmosphere is not for show. Path of Exile 2 has big bad enemies, and they matter. Not only are they fearsome in battle, the weight of taking these creatures down feels like you’re making a difference on the world state, but considering the state of Wraeclast, these victories feel like band-aids on stitches needing lacerations.
These design choices make each step taken in Path of Exile 2 feel like it matters. The player is traipsing through over a decade of developmental innovation, and it shows. Path of Exile 2 builds directly on the in-house engine PoE started on, and it’s refined to make this sequel a true one. Grinding Gear Games hit for the cycle with this updated, and bleak-looking Wraeclast.
12 Classes & A Forest of Skill Trees
In the first Path of Exile, the game had only seven classes to choose from. Grinding Gear Games added five more on top of the original seven for players to explore when it fully released. I was surprised to find that this version of Path of Exile 2 had only six classes to choose from at the outset instead of the listed 12. Players can choose between the new classes: the Warrior, Mercenary and Monk. Returning class choices include the Ranger and Witch. Like the first game, each class has a branching set of ascendancy classes.
The Witch can turn into an Infernalist at the endgame, who has the ability to summon the best boys, fiery hellhounds that can even be pet (no need to worry about scorched flesh though). The new Mercenary can ascend into a WitchHunter that aims to fix the ‘very wrongness’ of the world of Wraeclast. These ascendancy classes will have their own skill trees, unlocked in the dead centre of the over-arching skill tree system.
In Path of Exile 2, characters don’t have unique skill trees. Instead, Grinding Gear Games dares exiles to break the game and find combinations of the base skill tree that work best for their chosen class and playstyle. I liken this connected skill tree to the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X. Each class (or character) starts at a different point on the grid, and it’s up to the player to discern which direction their build will be driven. This freedom of choice adds another element of flexibility to the class system present in PoE2. Although two players may choose the same class, their play styles will be markedly different each time.
Aside from the myriad skill trees available for each ascendant class, in Path of Exile 2, players have yet another skill tree to experiment with for each league. Gone are the seasonal bonuses slotted into your base characters; instead, brand-new skill trees come with each league. These skill trees can be respecced without resetting the entire base character, so every build can be fine-tuned. Jonathan Rogers said this change is to limit the sense of loss when having to respec entire skill trees after hours of gameplay. Grinding Gear Games goes a step further and claims there is a skill tree for each piece of content (including endgame content), due to player feedback, further limiting this feeling of loss.
Rogers also mentions the improvement to the base skill system as a ‘less daunting’ way to onboard new players. Instead of skill gem drops from Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2 allows players to tailor their build, and utilize “Uncut Skill Gems” to slot skills, a huge improvement from the previous system which allowed fans to slot skill gems (similar to Final Fantasy VII’s materia system) into incredibly limited weapon systems. The uncut skill gems allow complete build freedom and let builds have branching paths making each build unique to the builder.
This system is significantly enhanced by the inclusion of uncut support skill gems. These seamlessly integrate into skill menus by introducing new effects to current attacks. A Mercenary’s crossbow (the new weapon system for the class) can then shoot bolts laced with poison, fire, lightning, and frost damage, but why stop there? The skill system gives freedom to deploy the sum of these abilities at once, making the player’s Exile a walking Master of Death.
The revamped skill system listened to player concerns, and Grinding Gear Games mentioned the reasoning for many of these changes is due to prophetic feedback from their community. Grinding Gear Games made a game the developers themselves want to dive into, and that passion shows from the team’s improvements.
Becoming Exiled
But how does Path of Exile 2 play? After removing my new Mercenary character named ‘Skwab’ from the intuitive gallows character select screen, I started my path forward through Act I. At the offset one thing is made abundantly clear, Path of Exile 2 is a hard game. The meagre crossbow your character starts with is laughably underpowered, and this is by design. You start as a dead man who escaped into exile, and as the walking condemned, you have nothing but the skin on your back and the bargain bin weapon lying at your feet.
Control schemes are as smooth as butter, and can be switched from the menu screen when using a keyboard. I was able to switch between a point-and-click moving style and WASD in the middle of gameplay. The original Path of Exile required a return to the home screen to switch control schemes — it still does when swapping from controller to keyboard and mouse — and it’s happily no longer the case. Skilled players can use this system to feel comfortable at all times and is a great quality of life change for the keyboard warriors.
However, I use a controller, and it feels like second nature during all aspects of gameplay. The UI has been adjusted greatly so health and mana bars sit at the bottom of the screen and are much more pleasant to look at in circular forms. This is also where potions (both mana and health) sit, and the newly introduced charm system. Instead of five potions, Exiles can equip charms that grant boons when certain combat scenarios happen. A freezing charm will stop characters from suffering the frozen status effect and so on. This system makes it easier for resource management, which is a breath of fresh air.
Shooting the crossbow feels wonderfully taut, and powerful. Instead of waiting for mana to charge (you can still use mana cost abilities) you have to reload after shooting. The skill tree can allow players to shoot many different kinds of bolts including a frost shotgun blast, and a single bolt that passes through enemies to mow them down with quickness. Utilizing the frost blast and what I referred to as the shatter shot in tandem was a creative way to delete hordes of enemies with satisfaction.
Skills feel strong in Path of Exile 2, and as a Mercenary with long-range weaponry, I had to deploy battle tactics to stay in the fight and avoid the “YOU ARE DEAD” screen. After initially struggling with the early hordes, I found my Mercenary crossbow character was able to wield melee weapons of all varieties. With a crossbow slung on my back and a rare tree branch in hand, tactical combat became much simpler. Like the Barbarian in Diablo IV, Path of Exile 2 allows every class to use two weapon sets, and the skill system automatically swaps the weapon when using a skill assigned to that weapon. This is pure magic as far as weapon integration goes. Instead of using a frost blast followed by another crossbow shot to shatter enemies, using the frost blast and then walloping enemies with the tree branch did the job superbly.
“Path of Exile 2 shows its teeth often, and just as often I felt their bite.”
How I felt when jumping for the first time in Elden Ring, is how I felt when I was finally able to dodge roll in Path of Exile 2. PoE2 has finally allowed players to dodge roll out of harm’s way. This is compounded by the ability to cast most skills while moving, allowing Exiles to be far more mobile than slowly walking out of danger in the original. The added difficulty to Path of Exile 2 is offset by allowing the player to utilize more ARPG functionality to defeat adversaries, and I dig it.
Enemy hordes are surprisingly smart. Instead of being able to mow down countless hordes while spamming one skill, PoE2 forces players to use many skills to keep enemies at bay, and spamming Ground Slam can likely no longer carry players into the endgame like the original title. Marching through Act I was a daunting task, but one I challenged myself with completing.
The Journey To The Iron Count
Act I is a whirlwind of lush biomes made as such to disguise enemies trying to murder you. I travelled from a forested canopy to a graveyard, through tombs, and an ornate castle all in Act I. Path of Exile 2 shows its teeth often, and just as often I felt their bite. Ranged enemies will shoot at you, melee enemies will swarm and surround you to keep you in place, and bigger enemies will crush your skull with heavy overhanded swings. Rare enemies permeate biomes denoted by their yellow highlighted names, and these are skill checks. Without deploying serious tactical know-how these enemies will end you, and de-spawn as punishment, and every time I struggled with a rare enemy, I struggled much harder against the area’s boss.
Each biome has a boss to defeat, and Grinding Gear Games claims there will be 100 after early access. After exploring a burrow, the enemy at the end was a giant tunnelling worm that instantly reminded me of Gears of War 2, but instead of sinking cities, this worm wanted to sink my Exile. Skwab, outfitted with a very blunt tree branch and a pauper crossbow, had a rough time combating the worm. I was felled by this boss many times, but the addictive roguelike allure of “one more try” echoes and almost goads the player to give it another go.
After changing my tactics, and deferring to grenade usage instead of frost shots, the worm became much more manageable. Focusing on building the boss’s stagger gauge helped keep him at bay for precious seconds while I regrouped. Although you can abuse the stagger gauge at first, I met a rude awakening of the stagger gauge filling slower each subsequent time you fill it. After filling, it twice and dropping the worm for free skill spams, the stagger gauge felt unmovable.
This is the true magic of Path of Exile 2. When confronted with adversity, adapting is key, and when you adapt right the feeling of bringing down a giant beast with excellently deployed combat tactics feels euphoric, but what’s better are the rewards. The worm gave me my first useful crossbow, and after tinkering a bit with it, the famous monster hunter Van Helsing would be proud. I was able to add an increased critical chance with an Orb of Change, to replace the ‘increased frost damage’ that was already there.
“The added difficulty to Path of Exile 2 is offset by allowing the player to utilize more ARPG functionality to defeat adversaries, and I dig it.”
After continuing my journey through a literal burning village (complete with enemies on fire) The Executioner — whom you escape in the beginning — was lying in wait at the end of the level. This was a boss fight for the ages. The Executioner, despite his large frame, can put hurt on a poorly built character. I felt comfortable during combat until he spawned a bunch of trash mob enemies to hinder my progress. Like the original PoE, killing these hordes can fill your health and mana flasks, but distract you from the main course.
While being distracted, I missed a cue from The Executioner —think The Undertaker’s taunt before he commits to the Tombstone Piledriver from WWE — that had him draw an invisible line across his throat (also known as the cutthroat gesture), which followed by dropping a massive guillotine blade on top of my character. This finishing move does its job, and it’s up to the player to maintain composure (unlike me this time) and stay vigilant in the fight against these massive hurdles. After re-equipping frost damage effects, I found fighting The Executioner more manageable as he was slower than advertised.
After slaughtering the mountain of man, I met with one of his captees which led me to the next biome. Path of Exile 2 is a sweaty affair, but a truly exhilarating one. The last biome of Act I, the aforementioned castle, was the hardest part of Act I and a true skill check. Although enemies were easy to bottleneck through the cramped hallways of the estate, the smart enemy AI would continue to pile on damage to make life hell for Skwab. Using bolts that ricochet off of the walls in these tight spaces was what I immediately thought of, and it worked like a dream. This is the best part of Path of Exile 2. When you utilize a new strategy, and it works well, and Grinding Gear Games demands you try everything once.
After making snail progress through the estate, you have to fight the Iron Count. This is an incredibly well-designed boss fight that comes with two stages, and many attack cues the player must follow to stay alive. I died A LOT here, and with time on the preview winding down my goal of completing the Act became less certain. The Iron Count is a vicious warlord who wields a two-handed sword with ease. His sword swipes can make short work of the squishier characters, so staying vigilant and healthy is almost the most important aspect of this fight.
“Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be an ARPG worthy of placing on a pedestal next to the titans of the genre.”
After witling his health slowly down to half, the Iron Count is tired of messing around and shakes off his human disguise in favour of a bestial werewolf form, and for extra measure, he holds the great sword in his mouth, remembering Sif never hurt so bad. The Iron Count smashes you with a flurry of different attacks from slamming overhead onto the player, to blade beams that can be dodged with persistence. He even slams the ground to bring up two stone walls to trap an exile, and slams the sword overhead to finish the job. Every sliver of health you take from the boss is well-earned, and I loved this fight. At last call, I was able to deploy a proper skill set of poison damage (to damage the Iron Count with slow pip damage) while I focused on avoiding damage.
Bringing down the Iron Count was a momentous victory, and Grinding Gear Games does a great job of clapping you on the back as a comrade in arms, once he lets out his final death throes. Path of Exile 2 had one shortcoming, I had to stop playing after this.
Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be an ARPG worthy of placing on a pedestal next to the titans of the genre, and impressively it’s only an early-access experience I was granted access to. The great strides in gameplay improvements such as the new Warrior class being allowed to actively raise a shield and block, an entirely revamped skill system, to a simple dodge roll, show Grinding Gear Games’ primary focus is to listen to player feedback and improve what they’ve started building when the original game first entered early-access back in 2013.
It’s apparent that ten years have passed with the leaps in innovation they’ve made so far, and the title will only continue to improve as it moves towards the early-access period. Path of Exile 2 launches early access on December 6 (for PC and Console Day One), and two weeks has never seemed like such a long wait to become exiled once more.
