Path of Exile 2 Impression, Review & Analysis: Expected Release Date, Characters, What To Expect

Grinding Gear Games presents at Exile with the next instalment of its well-known license that, for many, manages to match and even surpass Diablo.

Path of Exile is for many the natural heir to the Diablo saga and some even say that the Grinding Gear Games title surpasses the latest instalments of that popular saga that paved the way for role-playing and action games.

For this reason, in 2019 the New Zealand-based studio announced Path of Exile 2. Many lovers of this type of genre were excited and were looking forward to its arrival to see how for the last four years we have hardly had any information about this sequel. Until now, since taking advantage of Exilecon some sites got the opportunity and have been able to attend a virtual presentation to find out a good handful of details about the game and we also know the release date of its beta that will finally arrive on June 7, 2024.

From expansion to a standalone sequel with a shared platform

Some of you will remember that at the beginning Path of Exile 2 was announced as an expansion for the first instalment, that is, we would be looking at a large amount of new content, some playable settings and a change in the graphics engine and name, something similar to what is going happening this summer with CS GO and Counter-Strike 2.

However, finally, Path of Exile 2 has grown so much that it is going to be an independent title with completely new monsters, and profound changes in abilities, classes and other mechanics, so they have finally decided to make it a complete game to also keep the first one. Path of Exile and that people can play both without problems, each of them having their leagues, expansions.

Finally, Path of Exile 2 will be a completely independent game thanks to all the content they have added and the profound changes in the gameplay.

The two titles will share a platform, so microtransactions will be available in both. Anything we buy now or in the future will be usable in both games unless it’s something hyper-specific like, say, a bear skin that will be available for Path of Exile 2 but can’t be used in the original title. But, for example, we can equip ourselves with that cool skin of a sword that we got at the time or use all the stash tabs in both games.

A title that shines visually and changes the class system

After clarifying that Path of Exile 2 is an independent title, we have been able to see a good piece of gameplay that, from the outset, looks fantastic on a technical and artistic level, with well-designed settings, precisely defined textures and all kinds of effects that make the game between right away by the eyes.

Going into the news at the playable level, the classes turn around in Path of Exile 2, changing completely, now having six classes associated with different character characteristics. To Strength and Intelligence, we have associated the Templar and the Druid; in Dexterity the ranger and the huntress while bound to the shadow and the monk.

We will have a total of six classes with three Ascendancies each to further specialize our character.

Also, as you can imagine, players will be able to make all kinds of skill and class combinations in the character’s passive skill tree just like in the original Path of Exile, although now you have to add three Ascendencies linked to each class you play. They have not given us any further details.

Interesting changes in combat

A capital point of Path of Exile 2 is the combat since, after all, we are going to spend most of the time fighting and, in this sense, there are some interesting changes concerning the previous instalment since they wanted to add more mobility to the confrontations and that everything is much more agile and fun to play.

For example, from the outset the famous dodge button is added with the space bar, which Diablo 4 has also opted for and they have looked for different formulas so that melee combat has more mobility and almost all abilities of this type in the game have some kind of movement, something that we could already verify by watching the monk in action which, by the way, we found to be a hilarious class, at least to see her play since we could only see gameplay and not put our hands on the keyboard and mouse to test the game.

Grinding Gear Games wants to make combat more mobile starting with a dodge button and new melee mechanics. Another interesting thing in combat is that we will have a short period to change the target of an ability. For example, we can be pointing the mouse to the left while we start to execute an ability and it is charged to end up pointing to the right and unloading the spell on another enemy. We will also find changes to crowd control abilities such as freeze or stun.

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All of these mechanics now have internal meters that indicate when you left it frozen or stunned. Of course, after, for example, freezing a monster once, it will be more difficult to freeze it a second, third or fourth time, increasing the difficulty of each extra freezing to find balance and this type of mechanic does not break the fun and game mobility.

Casting spells will be much more fun

Within combat we also have spellcasters and being one of these classes seems like it will be a lot more fun now. From the outset, the change that we believe to be the most substantial is related to mana and a new source of energy called spirit.

Grinding Gear Games claims that they were tired of magic users always being low on mana so they have left this resource for active spells like fireball and created the spirit resource which is dedicated to continuous spells like auras or magic armor.

Another of the changes is found in the default melee attack of the spellcaster’s weapons, something that nobody used in the original instalment. To fix this, each weapon now has a built-in spell that can be freely cast, just equip the item and use it as much as you want without mana loss.

Path of Exile 2 could be an epic sequel

After seeing a few minutes of Path of Exile 2 gameplay and Grinding Gear Games explaining some of the most important changes in the game, especially in combat, we have to say that we believe that this new instalment can be an epic sequel. The only negative thing we’ve seen about Path of Exile 2 is that its beta won’t arrive until June of next year.

From the outset, we love the changes that we have already seen in combat to make it much more agile and they still have to explain a lot of news to us in terms of equipment, skill trees, progression of our character and the Ascendencies linked to the different classes to specialize, even more and take our character much further.

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The only drawback we put to Path of Exile 2 is that it was surely announced too soon and that finally, we will not be able to enjoy it until June 7, 2024, at which time its closed beta will begin on PC.