Path of Exile Review

There’s nothing like a bout of RSI inducing mouse clicking to get the lactic acid flowing through your fingers and Path of Exile is just that type of game where you need painkillers on standby in order to keep you going.

To begin, this title would appear to be in the same vein of the likes of Torchlight and Diablo, a dungeon crawler RPG that you may play solo, or with friends if you so wish. However, scratch a little of the surface away and what you discover is a surprisingly deep and expansive game that has enough tricks up its sleeve to keep you hooked for years. 

Sup!

In Path of Exile, you select one of six classes initially, with a seventh becoming available once you have beaten the main storyline. Each class starts with a set base level of three main attributes: strength, dexterity and intelligence. From this point on, the game does not follow the usual template we see in dungeon crawlers; you are not fixed in a predetermined path of what skills you learn, what armor you can wear or what stats you wish to stack in order to progress in the game. There are three difficulty levels to stomp through, just like Diablo III, and with each difficulty level, the game will become more challenging, yet more rewarding for your character progression.

Every skill and special attack in Path of Exile is actually in the form of a gem which is socketed into the equipment you find while killing monsters, so if you fancy it, you could start out as a spell caster that becomes some sort of sword wielding battle mage. This is partly due to the skill gems and also down to the complete freedom of the game’s talent tree system, which on first glance, is as daunting as using Apple Maps to successfully guide you through the city streets of Hong Kong without getting lost. 

TAXI!

The game starts out on the shores of Wraeclast, a land where criminals and the unwanted are sent to be exiled, which also sounds very familiar as I’m sure we did this with our own criminals here in England, sending our naughty peons off to Australia. From the outset you get a sense of dread and loathing due to the dark, grim and almost Gothic like visuals. Everything is broken or distressed and the first signs of life you come across are weathered, rag wearing survivors just trying to get by without dying.

Your first quests are simple tasks of recovering medical supplies and helping clear the local undead nuisances from the beaches to give the settlement you came across some relief from the constant harassment they have been suffering. The enemies you come across may seem trivial to dispatch, but later on, as you start to progress into more dangerous territories, you quickly discover that the threat does not come from a single foe, but from swarms of opponents that wish nothing more than to tear you limb from limb.

When you get overwhelmed with enemies, this is where you will have the most fun as you light up the screen in a crescendo of attacks, spells and carnage as you wade through the crowds, killing everything in sight. Once the battle is over, you collect your loot and head off looking for more groups to kill to repeat the awesome fun. 

Bugger, birdie things.

One main point that puts Path of Exile ahead of the likes of Diablo and Torchlight is the fact that this is a free to play game. Yes, free to play, you have to pay absolutely nothing to get this game and start twatting things with a stick. You may now be asking what sort of microtransactions are lurking which turn this from free to play into pay to win. Thankfully the answer to that is nothing; there is absolutely fuck all in the store which gives you an advantage in the game world, everything you can purchase is purely vanity or cosmetically based enhancements such as changing spell effects or having little companion pets.

The items you find while out in your adventures will also become your currency when bartering for goods. Scrolls of wisdom that allow you to identify items will be the lowest form of currency available to you as vendors charge these to buy gear, or exchange these, along with a myriad of other item enhancing tools, with other players to get those shinies onto your character.

This lack of gold based currency seems to have generated a more helpful and willing player base when it comes to multiplayer content, or to simply help someone out, as there is no financial reward on offer. Players of Path of Exile will have to work towards the items they want which means they should be more willing to help you out on a quest as they are more likely to get something to drop which they also require. 

Store.

You quickly learn which items are more valuable than others to players. Some items change the colour of the sockets on equipment, some allow you to re-roll some of the bonus modifiers on equipment and there are some that increase the quality of items. All of these collectible tokens drastically change the metagame of gearing up your character as you could take a piece of gear which is mundane and turn it into something rather powerful, thanks to these magical lootable items in the game.

Another nice touch in Path of Exile are the special events which take place regularly. These may be leagues which reset after a month or so where prizes are on offer from the developers, levelling races that last an hour or a week or so, and other random events to give the players something challenging to do alongside the usual normal or hardcore levelling systems. For example, the league I used to level a character for this review was known as a nemesis league; rare or elite monsters you encountered in this mode would have extra modifiers above what they usually roll with to give you an additional challenge along with the chance of dropping loot which would not have been available of you were playing through the standard mode.

Overall, Path of Exile is a stonking dungeon crawler that will swallow all of your free time and keep on asking for more. A free to play gem in the sea of shitty cash cows that normally claim to be F2P but are more geared to hoover your wallet’s dry. The easiest way of grabbing this game is to simply head over to Steam and download it.