When my masochism does not make me play competitive games like Counter Strike, Valorant, League of Legends, Dota 2 or other competitive games where the score takes precedence over conviviality, I sometimes play solo or cooperative games.

My favorite style of game is RPG in general, whether it is Computer RPG like Baldur’s Gates or JRPG like Dragon Quest/Warrior, Persona. One of my favorite genres is ARPG like Diablo. I spent a lot of hours on Diablo 3 and the remaster of 2.

What is Path of Exile?

In the Action RPG genre, for a little over 10 years now, a small game has been released that has managed to grow and make its place among the leaders of the genre: Path of Exile, POE for short.

POE was originally created by taking inspiration from Diablo 2 when the 3rd opus came out because it had a lot of problems when it came out, haters criticized it among other things for being too simplified and for having an artistic direction that had become too “cartoonish”.
POE therefore rushed into the gap that the Diablo behemoth had left behind by taking a more “realistic” artistic direction? in any case darker and by bringing more “sophisticated” mechanics.

Games of this genre are already very rich in their character creation. Here I am not talking about the appearance of the character but about what we call character builds.
At the beginning there is the choice of a class and at each level there is the choice of passive or active abilities that make the hero stronger to continue the adventure. But bad choices can make a character unusable and when we have been playing for several hours it is a bit annoying to have to start again. In Diablo 3 we can easily correct the shot but in POE it is much more complicated.

And when I talk about more “sophisticated” mechanics for POE, just look at the talent tree the size of an open world from UBI Soft.

And there are also the skills that are managed by a gem system embedded in the pieces of equipment with other gems allowing them to be modified to have spells with other effects. There are so many other mechanics that I will not list them all here otherwise you might fall asleep before the end of the article.

This complexity is a strength of Path of Exile but also one of its weaknesses. It makes fans of the genre shudder but for the common man who would like to try it, it is very intimidating. This is a point that I hope will be improved in the second. Not necessarily by making it less complex but in any case by explaining it better.

Path of Exile II

This December 6th POE II is released in early access. To play it you will have to pay 27.75 euros or 30 dollars but if you wait for the release which should take place mid 2025 (at the earliest) the game will be free, the money being used mainly for cosmetics and to buy space in the loot chests, which is highly recommended. This was already the case in the first but if you have already bought things on the first, they will all be available in the second. Early access gives you enough to buy this famous place in the chests.
Finally, early access should be considered more as a beta, in fact, only 3 acts out of 6 will be available at its release as well as 6 of the 12 planned classes and 2 subclasses out of 3 planned for each character class.

I am not a big POE player but I fell for POE II and I will explain why.

As I already told you, POE One was, because of its richness, complicated for someone new to the genre. POE II seems to be just as rich but yet a lot of things have been put in place to make it more accessible.

qio souhaitaitPOE was an independent project made by only 3 man at the start of the project, which means that the basic budget was not huge and the lore of the game was distilled in dialog boxes that we all ended up going through. The story in an RPG remains important to make me want to move forward even if it is not transcendent. It is one of the strengths of Diablo over its competitors with an entity like Blizzard behind it we were entitled to cutscenes and staging. With this introductory cutscene, POE II finally makes me really want to know more about its universe.

I always found the first POE very ugly or at least its artistic direction didn’t speak to me. POE II makes me want it much more on that side. The enemy designs are much more varied and the bosses are magnificent.

The content is going to be pharaonic. a hundred environments, 6 acts of about ten hours, 100 bosses and more than 600 monsters planned. 12 classes and 3 subclasses for each, a total of 36 possible variants, 700 types of equipment… In short, we will have something to have fun with!

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The 6 classes available at the launch of the early access

6 other classes will be release later!

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Finally, there is the gameplay. Diablo 2, 3 and 4 or POE first of the name is played by moving with the mouse, which poses a problem is that you can’t really shoot/hit in one direction and move in another. In POE II they made the choice that we move with the w, a, s, d keys, and that we aim with the mouse. This should allow for more nervous combat and much better gaming comfort.
We got used to the old-school handling but I think that after playing POE II it will be hard to go back. And then it is a perfect gameplay for playing with a controller and that is important. (You should know that both gameplay possibilities will be available in the options.)

Why?

The game will be playable with 6 people on the internet but above all it will be possible to play with 2 people in couch coop! Perfect for playing with my brother! And the game will also be released on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, is also compatible with Steam Deck, the beta running at 40fps on this platform for now. Other good news, crossplay will be available. A console player will be able to play with PC players or start a game on pc and continue on Xbox or PS5.

The game has me really excited and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. We usually get a game of this quality every ten years. That’s why I wanted to tell you about it. I’ll give you some feedback once I’ve played it a bit.