Path of Exile 2 – Early Access Review (0.3)

As Path of Exile 2 is in continual development, my impressions will likely evolve with each update. That said, my opinion has already shifted since launch—I started off very negative, but I’ve grown to enjoy the game considerably more over time.

One point worth emphasizing is that Path of Exile 2 feels very different from its predecessor. The pacing, combat flow, and general design philosophy cater to a different audience than Path of Exile 1. This isn’t just a sequel—it’s almost a new kind of ARPG altogether.

Slower, Heavier Combat – A Double-Edged Sword

Where the first game emphasized speed, clearing screens of enemies in seconds, Path of Exile 2 slows things down dramatically. Enemies are tougher, bosses hit harder, and combat revolves around setting up combos across multiple skills rather than spamming one ability.

This has some benefits:

* Bosses feel more deliberate. Their attack patterns often play out like an action game, with dodgeable telegraphs and interesting mechanics.
* Co-op is more fun. Longer fights prevent one player from trivializing content for others, making teamwork feel more meaningful.

But the drawbacks are equally clear:

* Fights, especially boss fights, last far too long. Enemies frequently have health pools in the hundreds of thousands, dragging encounters out to the point where they feel like chores rather than challenges.
* Rotational gameplay becomes repetitive. Instead of one-skill spam, you’re now repeating the same combo over and over on a longer timeline. It’s variety in theory, but not necessarily in practice.

The end result is that combat often feels artificially slowed down, especially in a game designed around replayability.

Build Flexibility vs. Build Punishment

The longer health bars introduce another issue:

If your build isn’t strong—or isn’t following a meta guide—the game can feel punishingly slow. Even meta builds can take too long to clear content, which means experimental builds often feel terrible by comparison. While I love that there are many options, the reality is that Path of Exile 2 currently punishes suboptimal builds much harder than its predecessor.

Ascendancy – A Step Backward

Ascending a class—a mandatory step for power progression—has taken a sharp turn for the worse compared to Path of Exile 1.

The original game used the Labyrinth system, which I was already critical of, but Path of Exile 2 replaces it with some of the least fun content I’ve played in the entire game: Trial of the Sekhemas.

Here, players fail if they take too many hits—not damage, but literal hits. For melee characters, this is absurdly punishing, and it’s telling that an overwhelming number of players overlevel the area just to brute force it. If that’s the default community strategy, I don’t see how this doesn’t spark a redesign conversation.

The second Ascendancy trial, Trial of Chaos, is somehow worse. Random modifiers apply to your run, and depending on what you get, the difficulty can swing wildly between trivial and frustrating. I found these trials to be genuine low points in the game—mandatory but miserable, with none of the sense of progression or mastery that Ascendancies should offer.

Friction and Pacing Problems

Beyond combat, the game is loaded with small design choices that kill pacing:

* Mandatory boss monologues before fights.
* AAA-style walk-and-talk sections that force players to slow down while NPCs deliver dialogue.
* Unnecessary steps for basic tasks, like boarding and disembarking the boat in Act 4 to reach new zones or towns.

Individually, these moments might not seem like much, but across a full campaign designed for multiple playthroughs, they add up and make replays feel tedious.

Campaign, Story, and Presentation

To the game’s credit, the campaign itself tells a stronger story than many ARPGs. If story is your priority, there’s a lot to appreciate here.

Personally, though, I play action RPGs for gameplay above all else, and frequent interruptions—slow animations, NPC interactions, boss speeches—drag down the momentum. Even though the campaign is long, it often feels long for the wrong reasons.

Loot, Skill Tree, and Progression

Some aspects of Path of Exile 2’s systems are genuinely excellent:

* Skill tree improvements: Gone are the mandatory Maximum Life nodes from PoE1, replaced by mostly offensive or attribute-based passives that feel more rewarding to grab. Refunds are cheap, letting players adapt as needed.

* Item base types with affinities: A staff might naturally lean toward lightning damage, or a wand toward minions. This makes loot easier to parse at a glance and more thematic overall.

But loot droughts remain a problem. Some stats—like life and resistances—are non-negotiable, and if RNG doesn’t deliver, your only options are to grind old content or get frustrated. It’s a system with mandatory requirements but no safety nets, which doesn’t feel good.

Technical Issues

At launch, the game crashed constantly for me. After BIOS updates and game patches, the frequency has dropped, but crashes still happen on occasion. They need to fix this before anything else, as even rare crashes sour long sessions.

Final Thoughts (for now)

I’ve completed all current campaign content, and for that alone, I can recommend Path of Exile 2 in its current form. It has engaging bosses, fun co-op moments, and a fresh combat style compared to the first game.

But I also have concerns:

* Combat and pacing feel too slow across the board.
* Ascendancy content is currently mandatory but frustrating rather than rewarding.
* Replay value is limited until enemy health pools and campaign friction get addressed.
* Builds that aren’t optimal feel bad in a way that discourages experimentation.

Despite those issues, the foundation here is promising. I enjoyed much of my time with Path of Exile 2, even if the fun faded the longer I played. With balance passes, pacing improvements, and more content, this could grow into something truly special.

For now: good, but flawed—and worth watching as it evolves.