Have you ever thought to yourself, “I miss playing Crazy Taxi or Simpsons Hit and Run?” If those games weren’t your cup of tea, were you a fan of Diablo or later Path of Exile? If you answered yes, then we have some fun information to share with you.
At Summer Game Fest, we booked a few appointments to preview Dune: Awakening, Dragonball Sparking Zero, Path of Exile 2, Parcel Corps, Stampede: Racing Royale, and DeathSprint 66. Our latest preview will share our experience playing Path of Exile 2, the long-awaited action RPG sequel.
First, let us start off with the genre that I know the least about dungeon clearing RPGs; that is right, I am talking about Path of Exile 2. Despite playing the original Diablo, Diablo 3, and Diablo 4 and a bit of the original Path of Exile, the genre never hooked me. Yes, it was fun to play with friends but playing it solo made me want to go to sleep.
Surprisingly, playing Path of Exile 2 didn’t feel like as much of a chore as Diablo 4 did. Now this could be because we were playing the game while standing vs sitting down on a couch or it could be just the change of pace the game had to offer.
For the playable demo, we had the option to choose between four characters with five classes available. Once we chose our character and class, the other characters were hung from the gallows.
For the sake of the demo, we chose to play as the mage class. Leveling in Path of Exile 2 felt a bit slower than Diablo but the enemies seem to be a bit slower and easier to kill. However, since I was impatient, I decided to run forward without care and got smacked for doing so.
Luckily, we weren’t in Hardcore mode so there wasn’t too much of a punishment. While we played through the Path of Exile 2 demo, we found an interesting bug where the area’s boss refused to spawn.
It wasn’t until forcing the character to die multiple times that the boss finally spawned. The boss itself was definitely a challenge, but as soon as you learned its mechanics, it was fairly easy to take down.
The Path of Exile 2 playable demo had multiple levels to explore, but sadly due to time constraints, we were unable to explore them all, only getting to watch others.
Overall, Path of Exile 2 looks like it is shaping up to be better than Diablo 4 and even the original Path of Exile, which is quite the feat. The dungeon layouts felt fresh and offered a fun change to explore.
As you explore, the dungeon’s map bent almost like a rubber band, teasing where it might end. I will definitely be interested in checking out Path of Exile 2 when it finally releases.
Path of Exile 2 is set to launch later this year across Windows PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
