Path of Exile 2 is the return of the “folk” Diablo. Preview

Played on PC

The first Path of Exile is considered the “people’s” Diablo for a reason: the role-playing action game from Grinding Gear Games immerses players in a gloomy atmosphere that echoes the surroundings of Diablo I and II, gives level and loot hunters huge scope for developing their heroes, unusual approaches to building builds and countless (but not faceless) hordes of all kinds of adversaries, which at times made you really sweat. It is also distributed according to a shareware model and does not attack players with a greedy grin, like, say, the infamous Diablo Immortal. You still have to pay for early access to the sequel, but compared to the price of, say, Diablo IV, the amount seems insignificant. It is not surprising that Path of Exile 2 was awaited with trepidation, pinning a lot of hopes on the project and predicting the crown of the genre for it. And to say whether these hopes were justified, we don’t even have to wait for a full release…

Literally every location is full of details, expressive graphic elements and visual narratives that immerse you in this inhospitable world

⇡#Out of the loop – to adventure

Like the original game, Path of Exile 2 is a truly dark work – with alarming and decadent scenery, creepy enemies, a completely oppressive atmosphere and, of course, a harsh story. Here you have invasions of bloodthirsty monsters, and terrible rituals, and despotic lords, poisoned by power and evil, and mass executions of ordinary citizens. Even the hero selection screen is located not just anywhere, but on the scaffold, where six heroes await the end of their journey. However, someone will be lucky today: the character we choose will have his rope break during his execution (everything in this kingdom is rotten, even the ropes for the gallows), which will be the beginning of an adventure full of trials.

Early access features six classes to suit every taste and gaming requirement. Among them there is the canonical trinity of a warrior, sorceress and huntress, as well as the less classic monk, witch and mercenary. However, even the genre-standard archetypes have something to offer experienced players: hidden inside each class are a couple of diametrically different development paths, radically different in play style. For example, a warrior can either destroy everyone in his path with a powerful two-handed weapon, or give preference to a towering shield, monumental protection and totems, which will do almost all the dirty work for him. And, for example, the hunter relies not only on long-range elemental attacks from a bow, but also on close contact skills that poison enemies. And the sorceress, in addition to the standard elemental directions, has something unusual – chronomancy, which allows you to manipulate time and, for example, reset the recovery timer of active skills or slow down the passage of time in a small radius around you.

You can choose a control model: classic, with mouse clicks, or action-oriented, via WASD. In skirmishes, the second one personally seemed to me much more convenient and more accurate

The other three, although less classic, are most likely familiar to most fans of the genre. The witch is a representative of the school of necromancy and chaos magic, capable of both raising assistants from the ground, such as skeleton mages or bone warriors, and thinning out hordes of opponents with destructive spells. The Monk is somewhat similar to his counterparts from, say, Diablo III – he relies on close combat, accumulation of power through combinations of abilities and spectacular series of attacks. And the mercenary in his general aesthetics is reminiscent of the demon hunters from the same Diablo threequel, although the principle of his abilities is somewhat different. Part of his skills are peculiar “cartridges” that are loaded into a crossbow, which can be turned into a fast elemental arrow thrower or into a powerful shotgun, which will come in handy when clearing an area from large groups of monsters. He also uses turrets and grenades – a good help in resolving conflicts with crowds of evil minions.

Acquiring abilities in Path of Exile 2 differs from the same process in most other representatives of the genre, where active skills are issued for achieving the next level. As in the first part, in order to unlock abilities, you need to find and activate special skill stones that will unlock a skill or improve an existing one to the appropriate level. Also, any skill can be enhanced with support stones, which will add an additional property to the skill. Some simply increase damage, add elemental effects, or increase radius; others will give an increase in one aspect, but take away from another. For example, they will significantly increase physical damage, but significantly weaken elemental damage.

Just like in the first Path of Exile, the number of available passive buffs makes your head spin

Another iconic element of the first Path of Exile – the vastly branching tree of passive abilities – is also presented in the sequel. Among the “passives” there are both standard increases in characteristics and damage and strengthening of defensive indicators, as well as more targeted features that will significantly increase, say, damage or the accumulation of stun on opponents, but will reduce the attack speed, or vice versa. Let’s say a mercenary can “accelerate” the speed of fire with two hands to completely insane values, but he will have to sacrifice the lethal power of a two-handed weapon. Or collect passive abilities so that you shoot rarely, but so powerfully that any crowd of creatures of evil will instantly turn into bloody scraps.

In short, Path of Exile 2 offers the widest scope for building a hero through a sea of ​​active skills and an ocean of passive enhancements, which will allow you to play as your heart desires, getting maximum joy from the destruction of the forces of evil. Add to this an impressive and surprisingly diverse menagerie of different monsters, spectacular animations of abilities, lush sound design and atmospheric music in the background – all this thoroughly draws you into the process, so much so that you sit with the project until late at night, knocking out “one more, the last one for today” , level”. And one could say with a pure soul that Path of Exile 2 is already great, but there are a couple of nuances that slightly spoil the mostly pleasant impression.

Somersault is a key skill when playing for each class, and it also does not require any recovery time. And when caught in the temporary “windows” of enemy attacks, it practically grants invulnerability!

⇡#Early Access Colossus

Frankly speaking, it’s even somehow awkward to scold Path of Exile 2 in early access for its irregularities and shortcomings, remembering in what technical condition the same Diablo III and Diablo IV were released into full release. And the colossal amount of content is captivating: three full-fledged acts of history, dozens of different locations with all sorts of dangers and enemies with a wide range of abilities, a decent variety of bosses, a lot of additional quests. Still, some aspects of the Early Access release may affect the gaming experience.

First of all, the banal technical crudeness characteristic of projects from early access catches the eye. For example, the network code is not always stable with frequent slowdowns when playing together (in single player mode, by the way, after a couple of patches the performance has become much more stable). Or regular crashes to the desktop, freezes and other errors. All together – not critical, but a sudden crash in the middle of a difficult and grueling boss fight can greatly sadden adventurers.

In addition to the story bosses, dozens of other deadly arena lords await in the world – defeating them will bring valuable rewards… but for some reason they give practically no experience

By the way, there is also a little trouble associated with the bosses. Most of them seem overly complicated. On the one hand, it’s a worthy challenge, but on the other, the situation when you pass through a location without any problems and suddenly come across an almost impassable stronghold is somewhat discouraging, it’s like I’m not playing Dark Souls. Here, of course, you can return to previously completed locations, gain experience, raise the level and get stronger equipment, but this disrupts the feeling of flow and is more tiresome than entertaining. Fortunately, there were not many such situations. Especially when playing as a mercenary.

And this is another little thing that Grinding Gear Games should pay attention to. Now the power of classes is noticeably disproportionate. The same stage or boss, with approximately the same level of equipment and at the same level of development, when playing for different heroes, feels completely different in terms of difficulty. As a monk, you literally have to fight your way through crowds of monsters, gritting your teeth, and still die regularly; for the witch, the gaming experience is noticeably simpler and more fun, although she also faced an almost impossible boss fight at the end of the first act; at the same time, as a mercenary, I rushed through locations like a breeze, and a rare boss could cause me significant trouble.

And not to say that playing for any of these classes did not bring joy, but in comparison one comes to the understanding that the balance still needs to be tightened – of course, in the direction of strengthening those who are now weaker. Naturally, given the overall volume of game content, this is a very minor problem, and in the case of Path of Exile 2, this is not even a quibble, but rather a designation of wishes, the hope that by release an already worthy representative of the genre will sparkle with its impeccability.

***

Path of Exile 2, already in early access, can give a lot of exciting evenings to all fans of “diabloids”, because in many criteria it is either equal to or superior to its competitors! It’s too early to give away the crown of the genre, but Path of Exile 2 has all the makings for it.

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