Let me preface this review with the following praise: Path of Exile 2, even in its current, unfinished form, has the makings to be the single greatest ARPG of all-time when it is fully released. Every core mechanic during the rush of combat (especially during the best boss fights ever made in an ARPG) along with the seemingly mundane lulls of browsing the passive and skill tree has a stupefying layer of depth to rival any game you’ve ever played. It is no exaggeration when I say that, after a hundred hours trying out different characters as well as progressing my main to the endgame, I am still uncovering new build synergies that make me want to start it all over again. Meanwhile, the game mechanics do not stop evolving; it continues to expand upon its previous systems with even more meta-defining systems to make everything up to this point feel like child’s play by comparison.
However, Path of Exile 2's endgame system is so egregiously absurd for the general playerbase that it nearly invalidates every compliment I have given the more you delve into the deep end. Worse, it manages to take the campaign that is satisfyingly challenging and devolve the experience into a matter of frustration for all but the most broken of builds. And devolving is the perfect word to describe this shift because the endgame forgoes the methodical, open-ended learning by failure approach of Path of Exile 2 in favor of the blaster-happy, meta-only-or-bust spectacle of the first game. At some point, every newcomer is going to reach this point where the experience no longer entices you to continue, so I can only recommend enjoying the campaign at this time as well as the lower levels of the Atlas content. If you wish to undergo the endgame slog beyond that point, you do at the cost of souring your whole experience.
Hold On, Isn’t This a Free-to-Play Game?
Before I go into further detail with a litany of grievances, I should address this game’s slightly confusing Early Access system. Path of Exile 2 is a free-to-play game that lives up to the name: You can play the full experience from beginning to end with optional monetization systems. At the moment, you’re paying to play the game during its development and to support the dev’s efforts as they finish working on the other six classes, their subclass Ascendancies, the missing weapon and skill systems and the latter half of the game (Acts IV to VI.) Currently, the Early Access system is set up to get you to the endgame by having you repeat the first three acts to reach the endgame level threshold, and then you will experience the Atlas endgame.
Honestly, I have to take a moment to commend the devs for creating what is essentially the most consumer-friendly model for players to pay to beta test a game. When you purchase the supporter pack, you don’t only get access to the game; you get an equal amount of store credit. Any microtransactions you purchase in Path of Exile 2 also apply to the first game (and vice-versa, although the availability of some options is best researched first). Those more jaded than I will view this model as a covert way to prime players to purchase from the storefront in the future, but the lowest tier won’t get you anything but the most essential in-game items like extra stash tabs and extra character slots beyond the 12 you start with. (This is a free-to-play game, of course.) Since most players will want to purchase tools to better organize their loot such as Currency or Gem tabs, and they will also need a Premium tab for in-game trading, I think the more favorable view of this model is that the supporter pack gets you the bare essentials as a free-to-play player that you were going to get anyway with lots of left-over currency for extra tabs.
Whether or not you agree with my perspective, you can make this early-access model work in your favor during special events like stash tab sales that happen every three weeks to get vital tools as you play or you can use them to enjoy the first game during its sequel development. Or you can simply wait to play the game at its full release at no cost. The key thing is that you, the player, have agency in these decisions, and I find it impressive how little the storefront comes up outside of a title banner on the title screen. My only gripe is that the default key to open the shop is set to M, which is what I typically think of as the mini-map overlay. I’ve experienced far more invasive, in-your-face models from fully-priced games like Diablo IV that literally throw you into the cash shop before you even hit the play button to condemn Path of Exile 2’s business savvy moves.
An Endgame Much To Do About Nothing
Okay, so let’s not mince further words about some vital points of agreements: The current endgame is not finished; Grinding Gear Games knows it’s not finished and they said as such; the game mechanics are not fully-balanced for the endgame experience; half the classes, most of which are melee focused, are not available; and you should not view this game as finished product.
All these statements are true, and I respect your intelligence enough not to argue with these points because they are all correct—it is also correct that the purpose of Early Access is to give the developers feedback for what works and what doesn’t. So instead of debating the defenses of “It’s Early Access” or “You signed up for an incomplete experience,” I want to spell out the key problems with this endgame model and offer some better alternatives to alleviate general player burnout once they reach the endgame. I don’t condone review-bombing, but if Grinding Gear Games does not address these core endgame problems during the Early Access period, I foresee an immense backlash the further the honeymoon period of its launch fades away.
First of all, the current implementation of the primary endgame model is needlessly grindy for the sake of being a massive time-sink. After you finish the campaign a second time around, you unlock a world map called the Atlas where you insert stone tablets called Waypoints into map nodes that modify the rewards and behavior of enemies. (To help tell them apart here, I’ll refer to the global map as the map and the waypoints as nodes.) Overall, this system offers enough variety to keep things from becoming too repetitive with random extra modifiers on the world map as well as modifiers you can share across multiple nodes by placing a different type of tablet into the reclaimed Towers. In addition to the “kill all elite enemies” requirement, there are maps that spawn with activities such as Expeditions, Breach, Delirium and Map Bosses to break up the monotony. While this system is too repetitive, as a foundation it can be built upon for future activities or offer different objectives to prevent overstaying its welcome.
My key issue with this system is that there is no way to bypass the Cataclysmic Wake questline objectives where you must complete an arbitrary number of nodes to progress to the next tier. Currently, the questline works as such, “Complete ten Tier 1 maps,” “Complete ten Tier 2 maps,” etc. with slightly less requirements by the time you reach Tier 6 maps (eight) and Tier 10 maps (six.) By the time you reach Tier 11 maps, you will need to complete ninety maps, which is no small commitment. Most nodes will take players fifteen to thirty minutes depending on the modifiers and the general map layout, which these locations are not randomly generated, so you will become familiar with every nook and cranny searching for that one stray target. If you die at any point during the run, you not only lose all that progress you made, but you also lose the Waystone and any resources you used to create that node.
This situation can become worse when the fault lies not with you playing poorly but having an unfortunate combination of threats. You can imagine my frustration when I couldn’t out-heal an elite that inflicts bleed on hit with higher accuracy, while sitting in a temporal bubble that negates range attacks, and there is a global modifier that increases critical hits by 120% along with any melee attacks inflicting poison. Needless to say, the likelihood that most players will only complete ninety maps for the Tier 11 threshold is very low, which makes this system heavily prone to player burnout.
Now the reason why you would want to complete these quest steps is that each tier that you complete grants you points on the Atlas passive tree to buff things for the endgame. You can use higher Waystones to complete them, but they are not counted retroactively for future steps. This leads me to my first major suggestion: You should be able to complete multiple tiers at the same time if you can complete a higher level Waystone. Maybe these objectives can be limited to smaller sets of tiers such as Tier 1 – 3 , 4 – 6, etc. but anything to mitigate the full grind would be better to alleviate those unfortunate moments. This one change alone can shift the original focus on grinding Tier 1 to 15 Waystones as the first major goal of the endgame towards giving the game more structure on how to locate Citadels and other important markers for future endgame activities and rewards.
Speaking of Citadels, Grinding Gear Games needs to quickly implement a far more obvious way to locate these places as currently there are some players who have reached level 90+ grinding Waystones without ever seeing a single Citadel, one of three requirements for the penultimate boss. While the online rumors are amusing on the sidelines such as following the direction of the bodies lying down on the towers, I refuse to believe the game currently offers a way to locate these sites. What makes this system far more egregious isn’t that they reuse previous bosses, but if you happen to die you don’t even get an opportunity for a rematch; the location completely disappears, and you have to go search without guidance for another attempt. (Not to mention these maps require you to use a Tier 15 Waystone, so you can’t cheese them.) Even more ludicrous than everything I’ve said so far, even if you happen to find all three Citadels and claim their keys, you also only get one attempt to fight a completely new boss or you have to undergo this whole endgame process from the beginning—or you can farm multiple sets of keys or haggle other players on the trade site to try again. (Oh yeah, and this final boss can also one shot you if you don’t know what to do, but I’ll come back to that topic.)
In a game that encourages you to learn from your mistakes by going right back into the fray, it’s hard to shake off this feeling that the whole endgame was designed for a completely different game. Even when you first attempt the Trials of Sekhemas and Trials of Chaos to acquire your Ascendancy class, the game doesn't lock you out from trying again to unlock your first two sets of subclass points. It’s only after completing them do they consume your entry tokens on future runs if you fail. Even if the first three Citadel bosses are rematches to pre-existing bosses, I fail to see why the penultimate boss of the game couldn’t handle the situation the same way when you’re meant to fight this boss multiple times to unlock another set of passives on the Atlas skill tree. Furthermore, what if we implemented a similar level of forgiveness to the first half of the Waystone grind by consuming two of the six town portals you’re given to access the map node, thus giving you three attempts on each map. You could easily mitigate players gaming this system by halving the rewards/rarity upon each death, thereby offering them the choice between restarting the entire node with full rewards or letting them finish the node they were currently working on for the map completion rating.
Before any detractors lament how my suggestions would casualize the game beyond recognition, ask yourself an important question: If every player is not meant to defeat the penultimate boss because it’s an aspirational goal, what else is the end goal of the current endgame? Currently, there is nothing else to strive for and Grinding Gear Games needs to answer this question.
The only reason I am even suggesting any drawbacks with these suggestions is that the game currently demands far too much from the player without rest and the endgame offers no leeway for a single mistake outside of closing the game. It’s no surprise that many Path of Exile 2 streamers lament how they cannot take things easy the further they get into the endgame, and there is a time and place for content that forces you to lock things in. However, the game also needs to ease up as the game’s challenge should be a tug-of-war, not a war of attrition. While I understand the current iteration of Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas are not perfect—certain modifiers can ruin key things for builds like no elemental shields for those 1 HP glass canon mages—I don’t mind failing these activities along the way to success because I am either rewarded with new relics to make future runs easier or the activities are not nearly as long of a commitment. These kinds of activities are what the endgame should foster, and the playerbase would be better for it rather than focusing on circumventing mechanics.
Personally, I am not too fond of one-trick, cheesy builds that players copy to dominate games nor am I favorable to encouraging players to mitigate a game’s challenge by avoiding “doing mechanics.” (Now, I’ll freely admit, I do admire the ingenuity of those who originally create setups that pull off some wild numbers.) This is one aspect I can’t help but feel like Grinding Gear Games and I are on the same page as most of the nerfs the community has decried were well-deserved for being broken. On the other hand, I also sympathize with those who rely on these builds to mitigate the common endgame problems such as being killed by a single attack or dying to on-death-effects from enemies. Broken builds and broken mechanics naturally come as a result of each other, so I think GGG and the playerbase would be better off if the game avoided both extremes.
Look, GGG, You Already Won My GOTY When You're Done
Now, I could have gone into further tirades about the current meta such as how warriors and melee playstyles struggle more than their range counterparts or how energy shields are far too potent compared to other defenses. (That is a whole long story .) Or I could delve into further topics such as the controversy surrounding magic find / rarity influencing the game's economy and rewards, the way uniques are so hyper niche they are rarely worth using, or even the crafting vs trading dispute.
Yet these issues are all blemishes that I have no doubt will be addressed during Path of Exile 2's Early Access. (Honestly, if physical armor provided some innate resistance to chaos / poison damage that would greatly benefit melee playstyles.) However, the shortcomings with the current endgame model are far too detrimental to ignore, which is a shame because I would rather talk about all the amazing boss fights, skill and support gem interactions and everything else that keeps me coming back to grind away the hours.
Early Access Ratings:
Overall Score: 3/5
Detailed Score: 11/15 (73% done)
[b]This rating does not reflect a numerical score of the game’s quality; however, it is useful to express the state of completion throughout Early Access. Eventually, the game should reach a finished state and the scale should reach one-hundred percent completion to reflect it.[/b]
Here is a breakdown of the simple and detailed scale (1-5) into four broad categories (Content, Quality, Optimization and Productivity):
1 : A bug-filled mess with no content updated infrequently with no sign of change.
2: A game with the beginnings of ideas, yet too soon to invest your time. Check for updates to see if things improve. (Also, without all the basic features, such as promised multiplayer modes.)
3: A game that is in a playable state, yet may not have all its technical issues resolved. Features are all available while they may not be finalized. Games are cautious recommendations to buy, so you should check the updates.
4: A game that is in a playable state, technically competent, and has enough content to be worthy of purchase. Features are accounted and the updates are frequent enough to not discourage cautious buyers. Updates should be with respect to the size of the development team.
5: A game that could be considered finished. It is in the final stages of development with balancing and other last-minute changes to be resolved to be fit for release.
Content: 4/5
Essentially, you are getting the full Level 1 - 100 experience tailored to the Early Access model as well as the endgame. No, you don't have every class option nor every weapon type, subclass or the full campaign, but there is enough to consider this game essentially a fully released title.
Quality: 5/5
Nothing regarding the game's UI, presentation or in-game models showcases that this game was rushed to be made available with regards to its visuals or gameplay. Unless the devs overhaul the aesthetics, this game should appear the same, visually, as its full release.
Optimization: 2/5
While this game is mechanically rich and the presentation is next-level from a smaller studio, the game is not without loads of optimization shortcomings that are influenced by random players with flashy cosmetic effects spawning into town. Framerate can also tank unexpectedly, so be advised to run this for performance mode if you can.
Productivity: X/5
Remains to be seen as the game has been out less than one month. According to Grinding Gear Games the Early Access period is, "As long as needed. We believe it will be at least 6 months.” With regard to Steam's new Early Access policy for delaying timeframes, this remains to be seen whether or not this will result in the final release being pushed out further or too soon.
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