With Diablo IV releasing just a year and a half ago, it’s probably not too surprising to discover that a good number of players are already becoming somewhat tired of what Blizzard’s latest stab at the dungeon crawler genre has been offering up. Thankfully then, the long-awaited Path of Exile 2 from Grinding Gear Games has arrived at just the right time, providing Diablo players with the sort of alternative that hasn’t been around in a long time. If you’re sick of Diablo IV here’s why you should give Path of Exile 2 a shot.
Endless Customisation And Speccing Possibilities
Though Diablo IV isn’t particularly lacking in the customisation and speccing stakes – it has had three prior games and an avalanche of patches to get it right, after all – it arguably falls some way short of what Grinding Gear Games has achieved with Path of Exile 2. Certainly, just a glance at Path of Exile 2’s trademark passive skill tree which has been inherited from the first game, reveals an abyssal depth of character customisation that far outstrips any other entry in the dungeon crawler genre.
Stuffed to the gills with more than 1,900(!) unique skills that allow wannabe monster mashers to customise their character build, Path of Exile 2 also brings a new Dual Specialisation mechanic to the table as well, permitting passive skill points to be shoved into the entirely different skill types without penalty. In practice, if you’re switching between fire and archery attacks, for instance, the skill points that you have invested into those attack skills will immediately come into play, allowing players to simultaneously specialise and diversify their build at the same time.
Reaching past the framework of its sprawling skills matrix, Path of Exile 2 widens its commitment to near limitless customisation and build-speccing possibilities further still thanks to its Skill Gem system. With nearly 450 Gems in total, split between Skill Gems and Support Gems, players can use Skill Gems to enable powerful active skills that can be used in combat, while socketing Support Gems into those same Skill Gems modifies their behaviour, providing yet more creative latitude still for players to customise their build.
If all of that wasn’t enough, there’s also the concept of Ascendancy Class progression. With twelve character classes as of this writing, each of these classes has three separate Ascendancy specialisations that can be activated depending on your playstyle, providing unique skills, abilities and more that in turn provide a veritable bounty of choice for character customisation.
An Overwhelming Cast Of Varied Enemies And Bosses
With an absolute smorgasbord of character customisation and speccing possibilities at your disposal, it makes sense – for the notion of balance at least – that your opposition is equally formidable and boy, does Path of Exile 2 deliver on this front too. With well over 600 unique monsters and over 100 bosses at the time of writing that each have their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities and attack patterns to learn, Path of Exile 2 is filled with hordes of challenging enemies for you to test your mettle against. Further to that point, combat with Path of Exile 2’s many bosses feels much more akin to something like Dark Souls, rather than another dungeon crawler, as there is a real emphasis on developing strategies for each boss and generally staying out of their way whilst you (and maybe some friends) chip away at their gargantuan health bars.
A Much More Worthwhile, Content-Packed Endgame
Once you’ve carved a bloody path through Path of Exile 2’s six-act campaign you’ll find yourself in its endgame and certainly when compared to Diablo IV, developer Grinding Gear Games has gone the extra mile here. Boasting well over 100 endgame maps that each include their own boss battles and unique modifiers, Path of Exile 2’s endgame not only reaches back into the past leagues of the previous Path of Exile but also fashions entirely new challenges for veteran players to tangle with as well.
Acting as a hub of sorts for Path of Exile 2’s monstrous endgame, the Atlas entices players to unlock these new endgame maps to defeat the rare and very dangerous enemies that lurk within them. Much more than just a typical monster hunt, these specially curated endgame maps also include magical strongboxes filled with rare loot that when opened can trigger a deadly encounter, while special NPCs can also be discovered that can aid you in your monster-mashing endeavours.
Much more broadly, Path of Exile 2’s endgame activities are split between seven systems which include Breach, Delirium, Expedition, Ritual, Pinnacle Boss (essentially endgame bosses) and the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas. Fans of the first Path of Exile will certainly recognise Breach and in Path of Exile 2 the implementation of it will prove familiar as players venture through an interdimensional portal and must quickly vanquish all of the enemies within, gaining precious Breach points that can be invested into the Breach section of the Atlas hub, increasing difficulty and potential rewards in Breach encounters as a result.
Delirium encounters meanwhile modify certain maps and fill them with mist, challenging players to tackle stronger foes as they venture deeper into the mist and eventually tackle the pinnacle encounter of that map to gain points for the Delirium section on the Atlas Tree. Ritual encounters task players with defeating certain enemies within special ritual circles which will then eventually result in the ritual being completed and a wave of monsters appearing that, when eventually defeated, provide Tribute Points that can be used to nab much more powerful gear and equipment. Once the King in the Mists himself is defeated in his new Pinnacle Boss form in Path of Exile 2’s endgame, Ritual points are then granted which, you guessed it, can be reinvested into the Ritual progression tree within the Atlas and will dish out greater rewards.
Expeditions are one of the more unique facets of Path of Exile 2’s massive endgame, as these encounters require players to use special explosives to open long-lost loot coffers. The problem, as you may have already guessed, is that all of this loud bang-bang attracts monsters and eventually the pinnacle encounter for this area. Managing to survive all of this means that you get to gain Expedition points which can be used to nab more impressive rewards and more difficult encounters from future Expedition encounters.
Though the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas are largely what Path of Exile players have already experienced, it’s arguably the Pinnacle Boss encounters that are the marquee highlight of Path of Exile 2’s endgame offering. Here, players will occasionally stumble across a locked fortress which requires three keys to get inside that can only be obtained by overcoming bosses that belong to one of three powerful factions within the Atlas that are vying to get into the fortress. Once inside, Pinnacle Bosses presents a hellacious challenge that only the most veteran players will be able to overcome with Atlas points and high-end loot being the reward for those that do. To say that the endgame in Path of Exile 2 is a whole heap more satisfying and sophisticated than its counterpart in Diablo IV would be quite an understatement, to say the least.
Reactive And Transparent Developer Support That Shapes Everything Going Forward
Even before Path of Exile 2 dropped into early access this year, one key area where the game has sought to separate itself from Diablo IV is in how its creators interact with the community. Put simply, developer Grinding Gear Games has been responding to queries, issues and suggestions from the community on an almost daily basis. Whether it’s questions about the Path of Exile 2 roadmap, updates on server bandwidth or responding to low-level queries about balancing, loot drops and more, Grinding Gear Games always appears present, transparent and ready to help in a timely fashion as Path of Exile 2 barrels its way through early access.
