

Where to start? Where to end? What the hell am I doing? It’s overwhelming to say the least, and it is pretty much a given that each player’s first character will end up being relatively useless as they struggle to navigate a decent path through the skill tree. Some players will be reminded of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X, others will just spend time being lost in its vast amount branches and nodes. Path of Exile is very much its own game, which becomes apparent the first time players encounter the passive skill tree. It’s a clear homage to the all-time classic, Diablo II, but an homage is all it is. Picking a class, the clicky-click nature of the combat, the Tetris-style inventory management, the dark atmosphere, and even one of the early quests that has players killing every last monster inside a sort of “den” filled with monsters that you might call…evil. The pace of the development on the sequel has picked up, and it does feel like there's the light at the end of the tunnel now.The very beginning of Path of Exile will immediately make seasoned veterans of the ARPG genre feel at home. While that was great for PoE1 and the community, that sort of paralyzed the team and our work on the sequel, so we've been smarter about using our limited resources now. "The other problem we ran into was the amount of work that went into the various expansions for Path of Exile 1. " is going well, but the two problems we had in 2020 was the pandemic itself, which was very disruptive and wasn't great for the productivity of the team, but also because it prevented us from hiring more people to the team," he said. During an extended talk with Wilson after the presentation, he stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had slowed the sequel's development more than they expected, but in recent months, progress on the game has picked up. While the demo shown for Path of Exile 2 was impressive, the sequel is still far from release. Path of Exile 2 looks to carry on what made the original such a well-liked game within its community. The original Path of Exile released almost 10 years ago, and it was impressive to see the jump in visual fidelity and quality for its sequel. Some sections of the gameplay demo even featured more cinematic touches, with cameras taking more sweeping shots and angles to showcase the environment's depth of scale.
#Path of exile 2 video game upgrade#
Along with new gameplay updates such as new weapon classes like the spear, and a new gem upgrade system, Path of Exile 2 also has an entirely new graphics engine and animation system that gives the game a noticeably more pronounced and dynamic than its predecessor. While certain aspects of player progress from PoE 1 will carry over, the sequel will have you start fresh with a new character. All of your old characters will still be playable and of course, any microtransaction purchases you made in Path of Exile will carry on to the sequel." You'll be able to play through the original Path of Exile storyline or the new Path of Exile 2 campaign on the way to the shared endgame. Both campaigns will be fully playable from within the same game client.

But we're not just throwing away our legacy we're embracing it. Basically, it's everything you would expect from a sequel to Path of Exile. "It's got cutting-edge next-generation graphics, as you just saw. "Path of Exile 2 is a true sequel to Path of Exile, which means a new seven-act campaign, a whole new skill gem system, new items, new monsters, character classes, and all the Ascendancy classes are completely new," said Wilson during the presentation. The new campaign will see your character team up with key figures in the overarching story, acquiring new loot from quests, and explore the more dense environments. However, the sequel puts a more significant emphasis on building upon the original game's content, which includes a shared endgame across both games and a more present story throughout its levels in the seven acts. Much like the current Path of Exile, and other Diablo-likes, the sequel focuses heavily on the loop of finding loot and procuring new gear for your characters. Just before the livestream reveal, we got to see a preview of the game with commentary from Grinding Gear Games studio head Chris Wilson, who explained what's new with the game.
