It’s not often you get to interview a game director while he’s in the middle of a boss fight he likely had a hand in creating. Yet Grinding Gear Games’ Jonathan Rogers fended off the giant deity while answering questions. “He’ll go in there, and I’ll hit him with a giant hammer—he’s got to die soon, right?” he joked, with seemingly genuine concern in his eyes.
Path of Exile 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the 2013 game Path of Exilea free-to-play action RPG that has averaged almost 90,000 players over the past 30 days. The Auckland-based studio’s debut project is, if we’re being truthful, the only ARPG that could be considered a solemn Diablo competitor, but the team is looking to cast an even wider net for the sequel.
Grinding Gear also wanted to improve the original’s combat. Rogers pointed to the novel Mercenary class, with its meticulously animated dodges and wide array of articulated weapons, as an example of something that wouldn’t have been possible in the original game. The team noticed that players tended to focus on specific skills in Path of Exilewhich leads to “one-click gameplay” with little room for experimentation. Path of Exile 2by comparison, it’s designed around building specific skill combinations, and encourages constant tinkering with your skillset in order to summon satisfying boss-killing strategies. When Rogers discussed this aspect of the game, he used Mercenary’s Permafrost ammo to ice a subset of enemies, then switched weapons to “cryogenically shatter” their, soon-to-be corpses, causing an explosion that devastated the immediate area.
My practical demonstration began in a gloomy glade where I stepped into the sandals of a Level 3 Witch. Skeletal companions followed my every move as I excitedly wielded my wands, getting used to Path of Exile 2a novel style of movement based on WASD. It’s a more precise alternative to the classic point-and-click mouse controls that were the gold standard in ARPGs. “I personally am very partial to WASD; I think it’s much better,” Rogers said. “It gives you much more control over what you can do and the quality of animation you can achieve.” Soon after, I was attacked by leagues of zombies and werewolves fighting for air, summoning a stream of twig-like protrusions to complicate the path of the relentless hordes. Despite all the strides made to welcome casual gamers, it quickly became apparent how complex Path of Exile 2 will be.
As I got used to the novel system, I wandered the half-lit corridors of Traitor’s Passage, weaving between lumbering, speckled golems and peppering them with arrows. There was a nice kinetic feel to falling in a storm of bullets and then using my Escape Shot ability to jump out of harm’s way, leaving a shock of damage behind. Although on one inattentive utilize, it sent me flying into a lair of giant, skinny spiders. I watched helplessly as they climbed up the wall into the playable area before eating my health bar. There are many movement skills in Path of Exile 2 and a few items that let you pass through enemies, but the more realistic approach to movement means you’ll be trapped by hordes much more often. Being pinned against a wall now evokes that sinking feeling familiar to any Call of Duty Zombies player.
Image: Grinding Gear Games
Before I tried another class, I decided to teleport to Ardur’s Caravan, the hub zone on the back of a moving convoy. The amount of detail in the environment was staggering—it was full of non-standard characters and crowded stalls, making it a sort of mobile version of the souks in Marrakesh. I was quickly introduced to a blind merchant named Shambrin and given a few dialogue options that spoke to the world. When I asked about Shambrin’s disability, they responded with, “Does a scorpion sting carry less poison at night?”—which, if we can spare a moment, is one of the most metallic lines of dialogue I’ve heard in a long time. A nearby desert map station allowed me to direct the convoy to a quarry on the other side of the map, and when it arrived, the once-sun-kissed caravan was bathed in the glorious pallor of twilight.
Curious to see how the larger story was shaping up, I asked Rogers to frame the narrative. “How in Path of Exileyou’re an exile, and then there’s this earl who’s kidnapping people and hanging them,” Rogers said. “The reason he’s doing that is because his mind is tainted with something he found, and it’s driving him crazy.”
Rogers noticed a greater emphasis on narrative in Path of Exile 2. Still, Grinding Gear didn’t want to “overdo it,” he said, especially in a campaign that (ideally) you’ll be replaying multiple times. “You’re not constantly bombarded with mandatory chat dialogue,” Rogers said. “It’s important to be able to skip through these things if you want to, but there’s a lot more thought put into the storytelling, so I hope you don’t want to do that.” The story behind the ancient temple area I was shown involved a group of scientists who created an artificial sun, but then fell into a cataclysm. After that, the undead scientists worshiped the light source they created. In a clever bit of narrative design, Rogers used shadowy areas throughout the game to keep himself out of the sun’s spotlights so he wouldn’t be constantly damaged.
Next, I drew a level 22 Sorceress in an area called the Lost City of Keth. Here I could test the synergy of the elements in Path of Exile 2. As the swarm of beetles closed in, I fired Solar Orb, a crowd control ability that sends out fiery pulses and deals burn damage to enemies nearby. Using a controller toggles Path of Exile 2menus, which are useful for selling loot and for any tinkering you can do with support gems. These are modifiers that can be slotted into the slot for your activated abilities, themed around Strength, Intelligence, or Dexterity. You get one support gem slot for every five points in an attribute, and you can spread them across your abilities to create unique synergies. I had two support gems on Solar Orb, which extended the duration of effects and dealt more damage at the cost of a longer cooldown. Most support gems strike a careful balance between providing positive and negative effects, which helps make gem choices personal to your build. However, I started to get annoyed by the fact that I couldn’t see the action when I hopped into the menus—I expected a subtle overlay so I could keep an eye on my surroundings at all times, but Path of Exile 2 kicked me out to a separate screen while I was playing around with my build.
Image: Grinding Gear Games
After some more gem play, I returned to face Terrorgnaw the Hunger, a mini-boss who prided himself on extra cold damage and vulnerability. With that in mind, I upgraded my Ice Nova ability by imbuing it with the Deep Freeze gem, which ensured my opponent would remain frozen for longer and stop firing deadly projectiles once I had the effect. Even with a mini-boss like Terrorgnaw, I felt that the focus on making sure that the menacing enemies presented a significant strategic challenge. You can’t just throw yourself at a horde of even the most basic mobs and expect spamming to fight your way to survival.
Terrorgnaw graciously dropped a unique item upon death, the Innsmouth Shabby Hood, which granted 100% increased mana regeneration but halved my max mana. The Chthonic cowl also framed my character’s face with the upper and lower teeth of an anglerfish, which no doubt struck fear into the hearts of the snake warriors I faced. I eventually jumped into a Mercenary build at level 13, which immediately gave me flashbacks to playing Fortress Team 2Demoman. On sacred hunting grounds, I threw grenades at massive, blackberry-infested monkeys from the chassis of my crossbow.
The result was a macabre mishmash of monkey goulash, complicated by a procession of poisonous crabs that slithered between corpses to fire projectiles at my shiny helmet. As Rogers demonstrated earlier, my favorite part of Mercenary was tapping buttons to load up elemental bolts, then throwing a bunch of enemies onto a train and turning them all into ugly ice sculptures. Unfortunately, the sad part of my 40-minute demo was that there wasn’t enough time to find thematic gear, play with abilities, and formulate a build. Still, it at least got my imagination going about what synergies I could create in a longer session.
When the game launches in Early Access on November 15, Path of Exile 2 will include a tip, but Rogers was not ready to discuss specifics. “The basic tip system is pretty similar to Path of Exile,” he said, noting that he wanted to at least maintain the level of choice and interest established there in the sequel. Rogers is very aware of the familiar criticism thrown at other action RPGs that “the end game is too small,” and wants to make sure that won’t be the case here. Path of Exile 2.
