Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review (PC) – Making The Best Even Better

Path of Exile 2’s early access began last month and, just like its predecessor, it’s looking like it’s set to shake up the action RPG landscape once again. When the original Path of Exile launched in 2013, it offered a deeper and more complex action RPG experience during a time when the titan of the genre, Diablo, was heading in the other direction and seeking to streamline and simplify its systems. This time around, Grinding Gear Games is also trying a more accessible approach with its sequel, while still trying to offer challenging and complex gameplay.

Balancing accessibility and complexity can be a pretty challenging endeavor as they often directly oppose each other. However, Grinding Gear Games seems to have found a fairly decent middleground for Path of Exile 2. It’s been able to achieve this by introducing several significant changes to the core gameplay. The first of these changes can be felt and seen in the game’s pace, where Path of Exile 2 feels slower than its predecessor.

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

The slower pace makes it easier for players to keep up with what’s happening on screen while also allowing them to place more attention towards other things, such as carefully picking and timing your attacks. The slower pace has also allowed Grinding Gear Games to implement some of their other changes, including the new dodge roll mechanic and their emphasis on utilizing multiple skills in combat.

The new dodge roll, which developer Grinding Gear Games has made clear is inspired by the Soulslike genre, works as you’d expect: it allows you to avoid both melee and projectile attacks. It also provides a quicker way of getting out of area damage, such as fire or clouds of poison, and the range or area of effect of incoming telegraphed attacks, such as charging enemies or delayed explosions.

One of the significant characteristics of the dodge roll is it cancels whatever animation you’re currently in. This means you can safely attempt slower attacks because you can simply roll out of it at any point. It’s just one of the ways the new dodge roll mechanic fits well with the game’s slower pace.

Rather than just running over enemies with attacks, there are many times that avoiding damage is just as or even more important than dishing it out. It’s not uncommon to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount or number of enemies and attacks coming your way, and getting out and avoiding all that incoming damage quickly becomes the number one priority.

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

In spite of its slower pace and its bigger emphasis on dodging, combat in Path of Exile 2 is still very enjoyable and challenging, especially during boss fights. Landing hard-hitting attacks and rolling away at the last second, triggering a chain of effects or explosions, slowly whittling away at your enemies’ health while you run circles around them, or successfully getting out of a tough spot, all feel very satisfying.

Path of Exile 2 offers a wide variety of mini and optional bosses along with its main boss encounters. Boss fights have the particular challenge of featuring both difficult mechanics and long durations due to the massive health bars they have. The game’s main boss encounters offer some of the most difficult fights in the game and can oftentimes become battles of attrition as you try to not only avoid taking damage but conserve your potions as you slowly whittle down the boss’s humongous health bar. The main boss fights also feature multiple “phases,” which helps a lot in keeping the long fights interesting and keeping you on your toes. The boss fights in Path of Exile 2, are arguably the best part of the game so far. The wide variety of bosses alongside the distinct challenge they offer.

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

Path of Exile 2 has also made the skill and progression system much more accessible. Skills are obtained by turning dropped Uncut Skill Gems into a skill of your choosing. The Skill Gems can then be equipped directly by the character. Support Gems, which augment skills, and Spirit Gems, which offer passive buffs, also work similarly, making it much easier to obtain the skills and augmentations you need or want.

The only barrier to unlocking specific gems for your class is the leveling system, requiring you to find a gem of a minimum level to unlock skills or augmentations that are only available at that level onwards. Uncut Skill or Support Gems are also used to increase the level of gems, respectively. Other than that, the new system lets players spend more time experimenting and enjoying builds rather than farming to find a specific gem.

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

Grinding Gear Games has clearly put a focus on players using a variety and combination of skills rather than just a single decked out ability. Because of this, there’s a very wide array of possible builds for players to try out. And with how easy it is to obtain gems and switch them out, it isn’t difficult to have multiple skill builds ready for specific situations.

For example, builds with abilities that have a delay or specific area for their effects or damage, such as grenades or poison clouds, might not work best against fast-moving enemies that dash or charge around the map, or builds focused on single-target damage may find it challenging to deal with large groups of enemies. But thanks to the new skill system, it’s easy enough to switch your build to better fit the situation. Grinding Gear Games has also made it easy for players to understand what each skill does with lengthy descriptions and even a video of the skill in action.

The passive skill tree in Path of Exile 2 is also much leaner than in the first game. It’s also much easier to respec it than before, allowing even players who are still near the start of the game to readjust their builds easily. The only section of the passive skill tree that takes a lot more effort to unlock is your ascendancy class. The game’s ascendancy trials, two of which are available in early access, unlock your ascendancy class and grant points to its unique passive tree. The trials are pretty challenging due to their roguelike mechanics but overcoming them and building up your chosen ascendancy class makes a huge difference in your character’s power level.

In general, building up your character the way you want is less restrictive in Path of Exile 2. In spite of these changes, there’s a whole lot of character building and progression in Path of Exile 2, between leveling up your character, upgrading your Skill and Support gems, picking nodes in your passive skill tree, unlocking ascendancy, and upgrading your gear.

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

But speaking of gear, it’s probably the one area of the game that feels grindier than others. While gear drops are quite abundant, finding great items with the exactly the right number of the right stats is pretty difficult. While the game makes a point of encouraging players to utilize its unique gear crafting and upgrading system, its heavy reliance on luck along with limited resources means it still takes quite a bit of farming to get decent gear. On the other hand, it’s perfectly possible to get through the game, at least what’s currently available in the early access, without having to excessively farm gear. Thankfully, the different regions of Path of Exile 2 are all distinct and visually impressive that going through each of the game’s maps doesn’t feel like a chore.

Grinding Gear Games has certainly taken great strides towards making its sequel more accessible, and Path of Exile 2 in its current state is by and large already a great game with a lot of potential. While it may still not end up being for everyone, due to its difficulty and the time it takes to get a deep grasp of all its systems, it’s still worth checking out. Furthermore, being in Early Access not only means a lot can still change and improve but it also means there’s still a whole lot of content that’s still to come. The Path of Exile 2 early access is definitely a must-try.for both action RPG fans and newcomers alike.

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