Path of Exile 2’s character display screen units the temper early by that includes a range of lessons, every with a noose round their necks. As soon as I affirm my choice, the lure is sprung, and each neck is snapped save for mine because the rope provides method. My witch scurries away into the close by brush and the journey begins. The message is evident: this place is evil.

The unique Path of Exile carved a path of innovation for the motion role-playing style when it was launched on PC in 2013 (and in 2017 on Xbox). It was an instantaneous traditional that may go on to develop a fervent following, be hailed by critics, and set up a compelling new world to discover. Now, Grinding Gear Video games is on the verge of sending us again to the world of Wraeclast with the upcoming Path of Exile 2. Initially deliberate as an enormous growth, PoE 2 has grown into its personal beast with a slew of improvements whereas retaining what made the unique so nice to start with — we received a really feel for this lately throughout a hands-on session.

“For Path of Exile 2 we actually need to be sure that we’re maintaining all of the depth that PoE is thought for, whereas eradicating rather a lot of pointless boundaries that new gamers may simply stumble over. There have been rather a lot of techniques in PoE1 that added complexity with out actually including any depth,” says Path of Exile 2 Recreation Director Jonathan Rogers.

“An amazing instance was talent slots being tied to gadgets in PoE1. Now your character simply has talent slots for gems by default (extra on this in a bit). In PoE2 we get to maintain all of the customization that itemized abilities gave us, however with out all of the annoying particulars round having to alter your gadgets out everytime you need to check out a brand new talent combo. You possibly can construct your character with attention-grabbing combos between distinctive gadgets, passive abilities and skills, but it surely must be much more accessible.”

The sport is constructing not simply on the mechanics of the unique, however the story, too. Path of Exile 2 is about some 20 years after the occasions of the unique recreation. Because the destruction of the primary recreation’s huge dangerous, the Beast, the world has been freed of its corruption and Wraeclast, your main location from the unique recreation, has been reclaimed; however that has created its personal points as nicely. The gods that have been as soon as stored in verify by the Beast are actually ravaging elements of the plagued continent, whereas others are managed by tyrants seizing the chance for energy. That is the place you are available in, as your character is dropped right into a small space to the north known as Ogham, the place the land seems to be sickening as soon as extra. Once more, it faucets into the deliciously evil environment; dire and dread appear to be key tenants of Path of Exile 2’s world design.

Rogers particulars about what goes into constructing such an enticingly creepy world to discover inside Path of Exile 2: “Step one of any world space design is understanding what it was used for, and what variety of folks have been there — we have to be sure that this course of begins with a darkish fantasy theme and may imply designing cultures with “off” components to them. That is true even for the cultures which can be pleasant to the participant.

“From there we attempt to discover references for some variety of look that we’re after. Often, we need to be sure that there may be some variety of “creepy” factor to the realm to evoke. Even one thing so simple as a method of rock can produce uneasy emotions in gamers, however there are rather a lot of different particulars to reaching this. An amazing instance is lighting. We attempt to mild the sport like a horror film. Which means having excessive distinction shadows, and never utilizing an excessive amount of ambient lighting. Even a brilliant space like a Jungle in daytime can seem ‘darkish’ in tone if you happen to give it a very good quantity of distinction.”

Once I jumped in and began enjoying inside this creepy hellscape throughout my hands-on session, I picked the Witch, whose abilities like summoning minions and casting spells monitor to how I prefer to play most action-RPGs. What struck me instantly was how pleasingly fluid my character felt shifting via the world, to not point out how nicely it mapped to the Xbox controller, particularly with the analog sticks. It was like enjoying a twin-stick shooter, with the left analog stick controlling the witch, whereas proper analog stick would assault within the course I centered my spells. I additionally appreciated the extent of management I had over my skeleton minions and the way I may put money into having a range of roles for them, like two warriors and two snipers, for instance.

“The largest enchancment for my part is the fight really feel,” says Rogers. “There are a big quantity of little particulars that go into bettering fight, but it surely’s issues like with the ability to transfer whereas utilizing many skills, particular animations for stepping into vary, dodge rolling, and the flexibility to retarget throughout an assault that every one come collectively to make fight really feel a lot better.”

With so many character selections inbuilt already, I requested Rogers what some of the components the workforce takes into consideration to stability every of them within the recreation; what’s the mantra the workforce follows to make sure every class feels like a Path of Exile class?

“We’ve got actually tried to be sure that every class has distinctive mechanics and concepts, however on the finish of the day the actual goal of every class is to ship on a fantasy that gamers have. The design wants to verify we’re fulfilling that — if you happen to choose a druid, you need to flip right into a bear! Since Path of Exile doesn’t have class restrictions, you may go exterior of that and do some actually bizarre mixtures. It’s not a query of balancing one class towards one other, it’s a matter of balancing each particular person talent throughout all the recreation with all of the others. The explanation that lessons must exist is to provide you one thing to latch on to whenever you begin the sport to provide you a template for a way you would possibly construct your character, however you may department out and do something.”

Throughout my transient hands-on time, I didn’t do a lot branching out or experimentation right here – it was only a brief 30-minute session. I used to be having an excessive amount of enjoyable spawning skeletons and casting spells to think about the broader implications of the right way to distribute talent factors for my character — I can tinker with that one other time when early entry for Path of Exile 2 is projected to kick off later in 2024 – but it surely’s already clear simply how versatile the sport can be.

“Path of Exile is a recreation with rather a lot of abilities, and for PoE2 particularly we would like the main target to be round utilizing a very good selection of skills in several methods,” Rogers explains. “This simply signifies that we should be capable of clear up the issue of having rather a lot of completely different skills simply accessible. On the identical time, we have now rather a lot of completely different character lessons and construct selections, and the perfect structure tended to be fairly completely different relying on what you have been doing.”

This feeds into the sport’s new Talent Gem system that may help you take a talent and modify it with as much as 5 extra assist gems, slightly than having skills connected to those abilities. With 9 talent slots in your character, and every talent having as much as 5 helps, you may give you all types of concepts.

“A traditional instance is A number of Projectiles. Put it on the Sorceress spell Fireball and also you get a number of Fireballs whenever you solid it. However whenever you put it on the Monk assault Falling Thunder, it is going to generate further projectiles. We attempt to make it in order that if the participant thinks ‘Possibly it will work?’ then it ought to work.”

Additionally new for Path of Exile 2 can be its console assist, with the Xbox model launching alongside the PC launch. Rogers defined to me that one of the primary issues that was tremendous essential to the workforce was to verify console was a first-class platform and would assist cross-play, which in flip led to cross-progression assist, in addition to implementing sofa co-op for the console model.

“We have to be sure that gamers on console really feel like they’re half of the identical neighborhood, and I believe that that was one difficulty that we had with PoE 1. It at all times felt separate. However we have been additionally fascinated by issues that we will take benefit of on console platforms which can be distinctive experiences to these platforms, and sofa co-op is one of these,” says Rogers.

“You possibly can technically play sofa co-op on a PC of course, and I’m positive some folks have their PCs connected of their front room, however actually the expertise of sitting on a sofa along with your pal is one thing that you simply get from consoles that you simply don’t often get from PC play. It’s additionally one thing that I’ve simply personally at all times loved, and there was rather a lot of pleasure within the studio about it too. We thought it could be rather a lot of enjoyable, so we determined to go for it.”

By each measure, it appears Grinding Gear Video games has discovered a strategy to outdo itself and is primed to ship one other compelling entry of their Path of Exile franchise. With the unimaginable stage of character customization, a darkish and sinister world that we’re simply dying to discover additional, and a slew of console pleasant options, Path of Exile 2 is firmly on our radar to be a must-play in 2024.