With the long-awaited Path of Exile 2, Grinding Gear Games must accomplish two seemingly identical tasks. On the one hand, the experience must be expanded with new content, which is not easy to do because more than 10 years of expansion have turned the original path into a huge game. At the same time, the game needs to be more accessible to newcomers, but that’s not easy when there are more abilities in the game’s skill tree than there are stars in the night sky.
Maybe that’s why the game’s big innovations are aimed at both new and returning players. In addition to the classic controls of using the mouse to control your character and the keyboard to select skills, you can now use the WASD keys to control your character while as you use the mouse to aim – almost like a top-down shooter. The game’s fast-paced game director, Jonathan Rodgers, explains that Grinding Gear Games started experimenting with new control schemes when they created the Mercenary class, which primarily uses a crossbow and mid-range attacks, but it turns out that it also applies to others. classes.
I would also pick up Mercenary when I sat down to play the game myself, and it didn’t take me long to learn to appreciate the new, more active control scheme. Opening sequences in action RPGs are often somewhat vague, in which you click through hordes of monsters as strange and dangerous as pop-ups and cookie notifications. But in Path of Exile 2, I was on my toes from the start, and there were several times where I had to make quick dodge rolls and then line up precise shots with my crossbow to survive.
Here’s a hint:
The control scheme shouldn’t get all the credit, though, because Path of Exile 2’s opening design is amazing, from the first moment you choose your character. The five heroes were displayed in a city square full of water with gallows hanging around their necks. They represent the main roles of the game, and when you make the second of your choices, the other four will hang and your character will escape. A crude but very elegant way to simplify menus, cutscenes, and gameplay.
After escaping, the game begins in earnest on the edge of a deserted forest. I fought my way through dangerous monsters to reach a medieval town where torches and bonfires did little to keep the darkness out. I love this vibe, it brings back nostalgic memories of the beginning of Diablo II. This is also where I got my first uncut game. Rodgers explained:
Here’s a hint:
” “Skills are associated with items that do not have class restrictions. In PoE2, we’re really trying to only show things like menus to the player. In PoE2 you get these things called Uncut Skill Gems. These are world drops, but you can also get them from quests. When you right-click them twice, you’ll access a Diablo II-style skill tree, where you can upgrade existing skills and equip new ones. If you are a new player you don’t need to worry too much because these are trade items and you can equip them.
Since my game hasn’t been edited yet, I can choose which updates to let me in. I choose “Permafrost Bolts” so I can freeze enemies with my shots. Later, this will open the door to combo attacks that crush frozen enemies, but for now it’s mostly about slowing down the aggressive enemies that blow you up. At this early stage, Path of Exile 2 is still very much a pure action game, but as more skills are unlocked and new gear is discovered, the game’s meta and base stats will definitely play a more prominent role.
Rogers demonstrated this with a post-game save, using his Mercenary to destroy tough enemies with an impressive set of skills and weapons. The destruction of his character is due not only to the constant switching between skill gems, with their attacks complementing each other, but also to the so-called support gems that change his abilities already. For example, Multi-Projectiles can give your grenades or frag rounds extra firepower. “We try to make each support gem as flexible as possible so that they can use as many capabilities as possible,” Rogers explains, using another character, Warrior, to illustrate the point. Here, he shows how an attack that creates a line of lava can be modified in several different ways with the help of support gems.
But even here, at the end of the game, where you have several abilities to choose from, more action-oriented reactions are still important. Rogers showed us a boss who shoots fireballs floating, almost like in bullet hell. When I asked about this, he assured me that you could also use classic controls to handle that type of bosses, but I didn’t want to be without precise and responsive WASD controls in the situation this. Fortunately, you can quickly switch between control types by opening the main stop menu.
I also asked Rodgers how long the game would be if you ended the story. Few people will probably want to play this way, but with 50-60 hours of playin the campaign, it is a great resource before the game’s big post-game, and this may be the best of the experience. However, if you want to play as a new character, you can complete the story faster the second time, Rogers explains : “The knowledge you have as a player – even if your character doesn’t have it – is still visible in the quest system. If you know there’s something to be found somewhere, you don’t have to talk to an NPC first.You can even complete the task before being told.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do many of the missions myself, as my time with the game was limited to half an hour. But based on what I tried and what Rogers showed off, it looks like Grinding Gear Games is well on its way to the difficult task of delivering a game that’s both deeper in mechanics and content. than the original, but also more accessible to new players. Whether this is true or not, we will find out soon, as Path of Exile 2 will be released in Early Access on November 15th.
