Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

Saying that Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile 2 is popular is a severe understatement. Even before its Early Access release, PoE2 had been the talk of the town on social media and on the internet in general, largely because of the hour-long video that revealed the game’s Early Access content on GGG’s Youtube channel. Since then, with Early Access now available to the public, Path of Exile 2 has garnered over 570,000 peak concurrent players and over 300,000 playing over the last 24 hours on steam alone - that’s not even counting those playing on consoles and on the dedicated launcher. Putting into consideration that PoE2 is also supposed to be a free-to-play game when it fully releases, getting this many players despite access locked behind a $30 paywall is an absolutely insane statistic in the video game market. But despite its popularity, there are still some who are reluctant to plunge into the depths, unsure if the game is worth buying into and if waiting for the free-to-play release is the way to go. So hopefully this review will help you decide.

What is Path of Exile 2?

I feel that it’s best to provide a good general description of Path of Exile 2 before getting into its intricacies. First and foremost, Path of Exile 2 is an ARPG in the same vein as games such as Diablo, Last Epoch, and Grim Dawn. PoE2 also showcases much of their brutal and graphically violent themes, as these games all feature worlds filled with death and suffering. 

ARPGs have never really been a genre that was perceived as difficult or challenging for its players. They’re usually a power fantasy of starting from measly spells to eradicating gods in the endgame, coupled with the dopamine rush of clearing hordes of enemies and seeing copious amounts of loot spurt into the ground. But that’s where Path of Exile 2 differs from the usual genre offerings, opting out of the easy power fantasy in favor of a hair-pulling Souls-like difficulty, even adding in a dodge-roll mechanic and slowing down the game speed, which creates a reactive gameplay environment compared to the fast-paced map clearing of its predecessor.

Path of Exile 2 is also inherently different from Path of Exile. Its core gameplay system has been entirely revamped and the experience of building a character has been changed as well. So if you’re a Path of Exile player expecting that you’ll be doing the same things in Path of Exile 2, then I can already assure you that you will be extremely disappointed. I think the best way to describe Path of Exile 2 is a “Souls-like ARPG”.

Contents of Path of Exile 2’s Early Access

Long story short, Path of Exile 2’s Early Access contains around half of the game. Currently there are a total of 6 classes, each with 2 ascendancy paths out of 12 classes for the full release, and an entire Path of Exile skill tree. The game has 3 Acts which can be done an additional time via the Cruel difficulty, 2 Ascendancy Trials (The Trail of Sekhemas and The Trial of Chaos) which gives out the Ascendancy Points, and the Atlas of Worlds Endgame commonly known as “Mapping”.

The Classes of Path of Exile 2

The 6 characters that are already playable in Early Access are the Warrior, Sorceress, Ranger, Witch, Mercenary, and the Monk. Each of the class’ skill trees also corresponds to specific weapon types, namely; Maces and Shields for the Warrior, Staves for the Sorceress, Bow and Quiver for the Ranger, Wands for the Witch, Crossbow for the Mercenary, and Quarterstaves for the Monk. But you can freely mix and match weapons and abilities as you see fit, provided you fill the requirements for the stats.

• The Warrior is a Strength character and is probably the slowest class to play, so far but his slow action speed is supplemented by higher survivability and stronger damage payoffs. He's also one of the classes that have the capability of immediately one-shotting a boss before it even does anything.

• The Sorceress is an Intelligence character and your typical ranged elemental damage dealer, who excels at applying elemental ailments to enemies and dealing a consistent amount of damage in the process, but struggles in terms of movement and position in the early game.

• The Ranger is a Dexterity character who can also deal a mix of elemental and chaos damage, but is more concerned with dealing high damage upfront as compared to the Sorceress.

• The Witch is an Intelligence character that summons skeletons and applies chaos damage debuffs to enemies. It’s a safe pick for those who dislike struggling.

• The Mercenary is a Dex/Str hybrid and is pretty unique to the genre considering that he uses a crossbow that essentially acts like a modern firearm. You have to manually aim with it for the most part, and there’s an ammo and reload system, much like a gun.

• The Monk is a Dex/Int hybrid who attacks with martial arts via a diverse range of use cases. The Monk arguably has the most movement abilities in the game so far.

Gearing

Gear in Path of Exile 2 in its current Early Access state is pretty weak right now. I’m not sure if it’s by design, or if GGG are still working out the quirks in the system, but getting loot in Path of Exile 2 as of now isn’t as satisfying as in other ARPGs. To give you an example, my character’s a level 70 monk, but is still using a level 37 quarterstaff that I got all the way back in normal mode because it simply rolled better substats. I’ve bought numerous quarterstaves of level 60 and above, but none of them were better than the level 37 one. It’s just crazy to think that in level 70, I’m still struggling in getting a replacement for my low-level weapon. And that’s similarly the case for armor and trinkets as well.

Skills

Path of Exile 2 features a skill gem system similar to its predecessor, but the slotting is revamped to be more streamlined. As opposed to getting armor with gem slots, Path of Exile 2 now has a dedicated UI for slotting in skill gems. Skill gems can be obtained through uncut skill gems, which you can then convert into a skill of your choosing. All characters have access to all skills regardless of class. Skills also correspond to a certain stat and weapon type. Red skill gems are for Strength, Green Skill gems are for Dexterity, and Blue skill gems are for Intelligence. This distinction is important because the number of skill types you can have is dictated by a character’s primary stats. A Skill’s weapon type requires a specific weapon to be equipped in order to use the skill, but some skills, mostly spells, can be performed regardless of what weapon you have equipped.

Passive Skill Tree

Like the first Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2 also features an enormous “shared” passive skill tree. It’s shared in the sense that all classes have the same passive skill tree, meaning that a Warrior may invest points to another class’ passive skills, if they so wish. 

Ascendancy Path & Trials

Every character in the game has 2 Ascendancy Paths to choose from after completing the Trails of Sekhemas for the first time during Act 2. I haven’t really explored the other classes’ Ascension paths, because I’ve only really played the Monk to endgame, but each and every single one of the Ascension paths augments the class’ playstyle to the point that you’d probably end up building around your Ascendancy. It’s easier to think about it as a second Job Advancement.

The Ascendancy Path is a separate skill tree within the actual skill tree and requires you to beat the Trial of Sekhemas and the Trial of Chaos to get Ascendancy Points. Both trials need a specific key or token in order to attempt them. The keys may drop as loot when killing enemies, but when they drop is entirely left to chance or RNG. 

Trial of Sekhemas

The Trial of Sekhemas puts you in a gauntlet containing 7 different challenge maps, each having a specific goal like survival or puzzle solving, with the end of each path containing a boss fight. The mode also has an honor system, which acts as a secondary health pool. Having your honor depleted ends your run. It's best to think of the Trial of Sekhemas as the game’s roguelike mode, considering that it resembles systems seen in roguelikes, such as the roguelike map and procedurally-generated instances. This trial also features relics that imbue stats and bonuses to each of your runs when equipped, but are only active when doing the trial.

Trial of Chaos

By contrast, the Trial of Chaos is a different kind of gauntlet, one mostly concerned with challenging you to survive for as long as you can. Compared to the Trial of Sekhemas, The Trial of Chaos does not have an honor system; instead, every level lets you choose from increasingly harder detriments and debuffs that you have to manage until you beat the gauntlet’s final boss. The Trial of Chaos’ rewards are also mainly corrupted items, so this is probably the best method for farming them in the early game.

Cruel Difficulty

The Cruel Difficulty lets you redo all of the 3 available acts for a second time. I personally think that this mode is only there as a placeholder for the other 3 remaining acts (Acts 4 - 6) and will probably be gotten rid of once the game releases to 1.0. It’s literally just going for a second run, and ironically enough, while it’s supposed to be harder than the normal difficulty, it just ends up being way easier, because at this point, your character’s gonna be online and dealing damage.

Bosses

The Boss Fights, especially during your first playthrough, are probably the most compelling part of Path of Exile 2’s excellent game design. The boss fights always have you moving around, dodging attacks and methodically whittling them down until you defeat them or die in the process. This is also the main reason why we dub Path of Exile 2 as a “Souls-like”. 

The boss fights always felt intricate, and while some people would argue that the core mechanics of any given Path of Exile 2 boss fight is inherently the same, the diverse amount of flavor and diversity more than makes up for it, which keeps the boss fights feeling fresh and exciting all the way through the end of Act 3.

But honestly, the bosses are only difficult on the first few playthroughs, and become infinitely easier when you go against them after a few times.

Atlas of Worlds (Endgame Mapping)

Once you’re done playing through Act 3 on Cruel Difficulty, you’ll be sent into a chamber that’ll allow you to start “mapping”. Mapping is the endgame system of Path of Exile 2, where you’ll be given an atlas map that contains nodes, with each node needing a certain key, mostly waystones, to challenge a procedurally generated instance. 

Mapping is essentially where you’ll be spending most of your time grinding out the best gear for your character. And considering that the Atlas map is pretty much endless, you can expect an insane amount of replayability for Path of Exile 2 even in its current early access state.

Is Path of Exile 2 Worth the $30 price tag?

Path of Exile 2 is by far one of, if not, the best ARPG experiences that I have yet had the pleasure to play through. I was utterly surprised by the attention to detail and the somewhat polished state of the game despite its very early access state. Path of Exile 2’s Early Access shipped in an extremely playable state, as opposed to a lot of Early Access games out there that are essentially tech demos or proofs of concept. 

The difference in game speed and the Souls-like nature of the game took some getting used to. As someone who got used to the contemporary ARPGs of the past, Path of Exile 2 felt like trekking a familiar trail with an entirely new set of legs. But I quickly got my bearings straight once I’d played the game for a few days, and I feel like finishing Act 1 with every character before proceeding with my most favorable one helped a lot in acclimating me to this game. 

I think that it is incredibly important that you find a character that best suits your personality and playstyle, considering that I’m someone who initially thought that the mercenary was a broken and unplayable class until I saw a video proving that idea to be completely false. Every class in Path of Exile 2 is unique in their own ways, and people are already finding numerous different ways to play their chosen classes. While some are super effective, some just aren’t. So while every class is viable, expect that not all builds will work and you might need to do some experiments to finally have your build go online. 

The bosses in this game were an absolutely amazing experience, but only for the first time you go against them. I find dealing with them much easier now compared to the first time, and by the end, I’m just casually strolling through boss rooms and clearing them like nothing ever happened. While the game is hard at first, it’ll definitely get easier once you get acclimated to its gameplay.

The only thing that I really have some mixed feelings about is the Atlas of Worlds endgame. It’s not entirely bad, I’m still playing through it as a level 70 monk as of writing, just barely scratching tier 3. But upon reaching this point, my build immediately needed some rethinking. While I still deal a decent amount of damage, my enemies can also dish out insane amounts of damage as well. My character’s at around 1700 health pool and around 700 energy shield with evasion on top of that, but I still get one-shotted by a well-placed shot from a random mob with a crossbow. Granted, I’m still learning the intricacies of this game so I may be doing something wrong, but that’s essentially the experience for a casual tackling the endgame. I’ve also seen videos talking about the Atlas of Worlds being infinitely more difficult as you climb through the tiers. But I guess it makes sense considering the “infinite” nature of the game mode, so “beating” it is probably out of the question. 

But aside from that, Path of Exile 2 is still in Early Access. There are a lot of things that will be added in the future, and we’re not even at the state where seasons exist yet. So content-wise, Path of Exile 2 has already taken up 2 weeks of my life and I’m just scratching the surface of the endgame for one character. So if you ask me if Path of Exile 2 is worth paying $30 for to gain access to the Early Access, then that’s definitely a yes. Even in its current state, Path of Exile 2 overshadows much of the available ARPGs in the market today both in terms of quality and replayability. I’m not saying that it’s ‘better’ than the other games, especially because some of these ARPGs come with their own unique set of flavor and gameplay. But Path of Exile 2 definitely sets a precedent, proving that the ARPG genre can still be improved. Grinding Gear Games are the tip of the spear that’s taking the ARPG genre into a new age of gaming.

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Verdict: 4 / 5 (Fantastic)

PROS

• Mostly fluid gameplay

• A lot of content

• 6 Playable characters with diverse build paths

• Engaging story

• Exhilarating boss fights

• Endless Replayability

CONS

• Balancing of Mobs needs some work

• Endgame can be tedious

What I’ve Played 

*This early access review is based on a PC review copy provided by its publisher

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