Path of Exile II - First impressions of an intimidating adventure

In the world of free-to-play games, there are more and more options that can become successes or go completely unnoticed. For Grinding Gear Games to come up with a second installment of its Path of Exile franchise indicates that there was already enough success to continue with a title that has become expected by fans of RPGs. A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to attend a presentation of the game, where its director Jonathan Rogers talked about everything related to this game, as well as play for several hours this title that looks very promising.

The Path Begins

After a slight delay a few weeks ago, Path of Exile 2 is now on its way to arrive as Early Access. From what we have been told, the title is set 20 years after the original, and saving the world from corruption will be a task we will face. In fact, one of the interesting details at the start of our adventure is that each of the classes (a total of 6 to choose from), is about to be executed at the gallows, but luck is what will allow us to escape.

Within these classes we find classic RPG archetypes: the fast Monk, the elemental-damage Sorcerer, the powerful Warrior, the long-range Ranger, the witch who summons her minions, and the powerful Mercenary who uses crossbows like modern weapons. During our testing, we played as the Monk and the Mercenary.

During our time playing, we had the opportunity to experience the first hours of this adventure. Our Monk evolved and grown, acquiring weapons, items and new skills that allow him to deliver more powerful blows, harnessing the power of the elements with electric attacks, fire and ice. Being a dungeon crawler, we encounter classic elements of the genre, from the isometric view to the use of keyboard shortcuts to launch our special abilities. On the other hand, it has mechanics that allow us to attack with our weapons, but also, as if it were a soulslike, roll to dodge enemy attacks.

One of the details that caught our attention the most was the freedom of movement through the worlds. The story of the game and the characters we meet have shown us that there are certain missions and objectives to be completed, but it is not necessary to do them in any particular order. These missions are shown on a general map of the area, which indicates the areas where there are missions and objectives to complete. As soon as we enter these areas, we realized that the routes and dungeons are procedurally generated maps. There are some details, such as certain dead ends with an aspect that does not make sense, but in general it is noticeable that despite the fact that we enter on different occasions, we will not find the same place.

On the other hand, we played the multiplayer mode with one of our colleagues. This option allows us to be in the same game and play either on our own devices or in a couch co-op mode, as I haven’t played for a long time. The experience is good, although when we played on the same PC (each with a controller) we had to restart everything from the beginning as my character (the mercenary in this case) had to go through everything.

All the options in the world

One of the things that gives Path of Exile II its unique flavor is the huge amount of permutations in terms of skills and stats. The first aspect to mention is the huge skill tree, which is a huge forest. Players will have different paths and options for skills and tweaks to their characters as they level up, with many of these nodes affecting nearby skills around them.

This tree of passive skills defines our character with around 500 nodes. It is worth noting that this amount corresponds to the 6 classes in the game, but there are still about 83 options per class. Within these choices are the keystones, which are the changes within the skill tree that define the paths our character will take, which will also change depending on whether our character attacks with one or both hands. There are also items such as gems that allow you to add additional modifications to this skill tree. This is one of the most intimidating parts of the game, but it is also where much of the experience lies, making each character extremely different.

Then there are the skills specific to each class. These are easy to learn and use, and come with a small video tutorial explaining what each skill does. Of course, there are also items such as orbs and gems that create other permutations within our abilities, such as multiplying a fireball to cover more ground, or a wall of fire that changes shape to trap enemies instead of just becoming a wall that stops them for a moment.

Reaching the Endgame

It is surprising that a game like Path of Exile 2 is already thinking about an endgame at the time of its Early Access release, and more importantly, has a lot of content for when players reach that point, which according to its director is where the game’s biggest challenge lies.

For starters, the main game will have around 50 bosses and will take around 25 hours to complete. And despite this amount of content, the title aims to have an endgame that will keep players hooked once they reach level 65.

So how does the endgame work in Path of Exile II? For one, the endgame will have a total of 8 trials, of which we have already mentioned the first two, the Trial of the Sekhams and the Temple of Chaos. Each of these trials will take us to temples that will give us different rewards if we complete certain runs where we have to fight monsters, clean the loot rooms, and face a final boss. The challenges will have relics that will help us improve our chances of winning, as well as bonuses that will modify our skills.

On the other hand, one of the missions that the game gives us is to clean up the corruption that has spread throughout the world. So we will be traveling around the map in randomly generated areas to complete this task. Once this corruption is cleaned up, new skills called Atlas Skills will be unlocked, depending on the bosses and activities you complete, increasing the number of modifiers per character within the game.

There are also the Breaches where demons from another world will come in. It’s like a horde mode where the demons come in and you have to use all your skills to stop them from attacking. Along with the challenges, there will be rewards with modifiers and the chance to participate in even bigger challenges like the Pinnacle Bosses. These will take you to a new wave of monsters to face the real boss and reward you with points for your Atlas skills.

Getting closer and closer

As you can see, Path of Exile II will come with a large amount of content that really surprises us for a free-to-play game. Of course, there will be supporter packs starting at $30 to support the studio’s cause. Grinding Gear Games feels that so far their game is the size of a game you can find in stores, but they still see room to grow. Path of Exile II will be released on December 6th for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

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