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Loot games are a hard sell for me. A lot of them put so much focus on the loot aspect that the gameplay itself isn’t usually fun. Even if they ignore the Diablo-cam like Borderlands, jumping around shooting things is only engaging if a shiny orange gun is spat out at you as a reward.

Path of Exile 2 has had a pretty dramatic effort to break away from that- it’s bosses are more Souls-like in nature, having movesets you actually have to learn if you want to make it out alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of its endgame bosses had FFXIV-style raid diagrams: your loot will not save you from an oddly racist undead Karen and her fireball barrage. Salvation lies in your mastery of dodge timings.

So, So Many Menus In Path of Exile 2

And yet, having tried out Path of Exile 2 for myself I can’t help but shake the feeling that this is the most extreme ARPG I’ve played yet. Every single one of Path of Exile 2’s menus is an Olympic dive into complexity- one that the game builds prides itself on.

In my playthrough, I’d tried out the Warrior. You’d think a physical class would be fairly straightforward in its skills- a strong basic attack, a stronger special attack, maybe a status, right? Wrong. Even with the equivalent of a cave man, the Skill Gem system means creating a variety of cool combinations, like a totem that causes mass bleed on enemies or stacking a bunch of daze-punishing buffs to create the sucker punch to surpass all sucker punches for those extra hard boss fights.

Path of Exile 2
Every skill in Path of Exile 2 has keywords, and support gems can be moved around between skills that share those keywords, not unlike building a Commander deck

It’s not so much that individual skills are really good- but the very core of Path of Exile 2 is these extremely modular abilities that allow them to combo into each other thanks to the Skill Gem system- the game very clearly phrases what type of attack every ability is, letting you slot gems across skill lines kind of like building your own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Commander deck.

I mean, one of the last skills I’d acquired before the end of the event was a charged strike for the Warrior. Before long I’d slotted in support gems that massively increased its damage on low-life enemies, as well as making it do a ton of stun damage as well. In short, I didn’t feel like just a caveman- I felt like the caveman all other cavemen look to with reverence. I was the Plato of blunt force trauma. The Diogenes of brutality. I was a man with a very, very big stick.

The amount of fine tuning hidden in this massive skill tree really encourages you to mess around and make your caveman with a stick the strongest of the cavemen

Even in the world of simple brutality, there’s nuance- having a Shield equipped with the Stampede skill adds Guard Points to the equation. The game’s multi-loadouts blow another hole’s worth of complexity into it. See the game’s massive passive skill tree? You can make your investments loadout specific- meaning your two-hand build can pump damage nodes while a more elegant loadout can target nodes from even other classes sides of the labyrinthine mess.

Every class gets to mess around with the Support gems

On the book-loving magic nerd end of the spectrum, skills can change so much by messing with your Support Gems- a linear fire wall was turned into a circular fortress, while singular, ponderous orbs of fire or ice can suddenly be turned into multiple. It basically asks of you, what’s the thing that gives you the most dopamine in your toolkit, and then lets you build around it with the Support Gems and passive skills.

Trust Me, It’s Approachable

Jonathan Rogers, seen here inviting more people to get lost in Path of Exile 2’s massive endgame

Despite the intimidating skill ceiling of the game, Game Director Jonathan Rogers explained that the goal is still to get new players, and awaken their menu fetishes within them instead.

“We have to make sure that it’s understandable enough to get through”, he explains. “It’s really just a matter of taking it slowly, introducing new mechanics over time, and you’ll get to the point where hopefully you’re willing to experiment and do things”.

“But a”All that’s there is motivated by how can I make my character better? How can I kill this boss more efficiently?”, he posits.

There’s also the massive endgame of Path of Exile 2 to consider. From a sprawling map to rogue-lite modes to survivals, so many of Path of Exile 1’s Leagues find a sequel game mode in Path of Exile 2, with difficult content that’s going to turn you from “swinging around on the skill tree” to a skill-Bonsai artist.

“As you get towards endgame, there’s much more complicated crafting systems and things like that”, he says.

“There’s a thing that Chris said a long time ago, which is that if you get to the endgame, then we’ve got you. You’re going to play the game again and again and again”, he laughs.

Gushing about menus aside let’s not forget that Path of Exile 2’s genuinely fun bossfights puts it leagues over other ARPGs

With Path of Exile 2’s Early Access launching on December 7th there’s a lot to look forward to. For example, I never got to try mixing full-on skills from other classes, or even the Keystone nodes- which add abilities like being immune to Chaos Damage, but at the cost of having no health (living life as a Shedinja).

As someone who’s bounced off many an ARPG it’s nice to see how much of Path of Exile 2’s fun isn’t tied to legendary loot. Sure, a good affix can turn your hammer man into a hammer man with a perpetual life engine- but there really aren’t many other ways to look at Path of Exile 2’s systems and not just see an endless spiral of menus, skills and passives to build your own Beast-hunting psycho.

Nmia Gaming - Editor W. Amirul Adlan