Path of Exile 2
Grinding Gear Games · ARPG, RPG, Action
RELEASE MILESTONES
Overview
Path of Exile 2 is a next generation Action RPG from Grinding Gear Games, featuring co-op for up to six players. Set years after the original Path of Exile, you will return to the dark world of Wraeclast and seek to end the corruption that is spreading.
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Path of Exile 2 is a next generation Action RPG from Grinding Gear Games, featuring co-op for up to six players. Path of Exile 2 takes place in the land of Wraeclast, a dark continent populated by unique cultures, ancient secrets, and monstrous dangers. A sinister threat, long thought destroyed, has begun creeping back on the edge of civilisation, driving people mad and sickening the land with Corruption.
Path of Exile 2 features a brand new campaign with six acts, 100 distinct environments, 600 monsters and 100 bosses.
Twelve Character Classes
Path of Exile 2 features twelve character classes, two for every combination of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. While each of the class variants focuses on a different playstyle, they're just a starting point. You can combine skills from many classes together to create your ideal character build.
Each of the twelve character classes has its own three Ascendancy specialisations, resulting in a total of 36 Ascendancy Classes to pick between.
New Skill Gem System
Path of Exile 2 features 240 Skill Gems that grant devastating active skills and 200 Support Gems that modify their behaviour. Combine these together to create your perfect build.
This is the next generation of Path of Exile's famous skill system. Support Gems are now socketed directly into Skill Gems, removing many of the frustrations present in the old system while maintaining all the previous depth. It's now possible to six-link every skill your character uses.
Dual-specialise your Passive Skill Tree
Path of Exile's iconic Passive Skill Tree has made a return, with 1,500 skills that allow you to completely customise your gameplay experience. It now features Dual Specialisation, the ability to allocate some passive skill points to two different sets of skills. They engage whenever the appropriate weapon or skill type is used. For example, you can have some points allocated to both daggers and traps, or ice and lightning, and as you swap between attacks, the appropriate skill points will apply. This lets you specialise in multiple areas without opportunity cost.
Uncover All-new Items
Path of Exile 2 features 700 equipment base types and every single one has its own unique item you can find. You can augment your arsenal with new weapons such as Spears, Crossbows and Flails, as well as supplementary items like Focuses, Traps and redesigned Sceptres.
Encounter Unique Bosses
In Path of Exile 2, every area of the Campaign contains a boss encounter. There's over a hundred bosses to fight as you make your way through the Acts and they all have unique mechanics to learn.
Explore a New Endgame
Completing the campaign is just the beginning. The endgame in Path of Exile 2 includes countless areas in different biomes, powerful crafting, challenging bosses, unique encounters and much more. Unlock new paths and explore further into the world.
As you progress through the endgame, you will gain access to special passive trees that can boost the rewards of your maps and change the way the various endgame mechanics work. These trees will make your maps more rewarding but also more difficult.
Path of Exile 2 introduces sequels to several leagues from Path of Exile. While their mechanics are familiar, the monsters, bosses, rewards and progression are all new.
Fair-To-Play. Never Pay-To-Win.
Path of Exile 2 is a separate game to the original Path of Exile. We will continue to offer expansions for both games going forward. They will never be "pay to win". Purchases are shared between the two games.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Path of Exile 2 is Grinding Gear Games' sequel ARPG, sold as a paid Early Access that converts to free-to-play at 1.0. Its design is what players praise: a huge build sandbox of skill gems, supports, passive tree and ascendancies; weighty WASD combat with a dodge roll; bosses people remember; and, since the 0.5 update, an endgame with quest lines, direction and pinnacle fights that won back a number of lapsed and negative reviewers. The phrase "best ARPG" appears in 340 reviews, and "better than Diablo 4" or a similar line (better than Diablo, better than D4) appears in 96. Several players say the Early Access price has already paid for itself in hours played.
Technical trouble is the most frequent complaint. 843 of the 2,515 negative reviews mention crashes, freezes, stutter, lag, disconnects or similar performance and server problems, and 601 positive reviews mention them too. Players describe multi-second freezes, shader-compilation stutter, "deadlock detected" errors, memory leaks and lag spikes that cost maps, trial runs and experience. Behind that sit design frustrations that veterans repeat league after league: replaying a long campaign for every new league and every alt, the "honor" ascendancy trials, death penalties that wipe a map and 10% of a level, and one-shots hidden under screen-filling effects. Players are split on difficulty and pace, on crafting (a deep system or a casino), and on monetization (fair cosmetics or stash tabs you effectively have to buy).
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Build depth and freedomHigh
Players like that skills are no longer tied to gear sockets, that any class can use any weapon's skills, and that support gems, spirit reservation, the huge passive tree and ascendancies stack into synergies; one reviewer describes the result as designing "a functional combat circuit". Respecs are cheap enough to experiment. Some newcomers say the moment a build "clicks" is what kept them playing for hundreds of hours, and some veterans of the first game find the system cleaner and easier to read than its predecessor. The caveat, covered under balance below, is that only some skills hold up in the endgame.
The 0.5 endgame overhaul won reviews backHigh
Reviewers say the Return of the Ancients update finally gave the endgame direction: quest lines that introduce each mechanic, a fixed and explorable Atlas, Atlas masters that act like endgame ascendancies, a larger atlas passive tree, and new pinnacle bosses. 112 reviews read like version diaries, naming three or more patches between 0.1 and 0.5, and 76 of them are now positive; one sums up its last entry as "0.5 - We are so back". Players also credit 0.5 with a smoother, shorter campaign, better loot, and new ascendancies (Spirit Walker and Martial Artist come up by name) that opened up more viable builds. The patch also arrived with a heavy load of bugs and freezes, and some players find the new endgame too easy or too long to unlock fully.
Combat, bosses and the dodge roll feel greatHigh
Players praise heavy hits, deliberate animations, WASD movement, and a dodge roll that turns boss fights into a matter of reading telegraphs. Campaign and pinnacle bosses get singled out by name, and several reviewers compare the fights to Soulslike design. The same slow, deliberate fights feed the difficulty debate below, and some bosses are called unfair (see the frustrations).
The ARPG to beat, and a bargain for what it isHigh
Hundreds of positive reviews sum the game up by ranking it: "best ARPG on the market", "what Diablo 4 should have been", "the true successor of Diablo 2". Several players say they paid 15 to 30 dollars for hundreds of hours, and note that the game goes free at 1.0, which makes the purchase feel low risk. Not every comparison goes its way: some PoE1 veterans say the first game is still better, and a few negative reviews prefer Diablo 4.
An addictive loopMedium
240 positive reviews call the game addictive or describe the pull of one more map; one calls it "digital cocaine", and another writes "blinked and ive lost 1000 hours". Players use the word as a warning and a recommendation at once. Some describe the game as a second job, a few as a complaint and others as a selling point.
Art, sound and atmosphereMedium
The dark visual style, varied acts (Act 1 and Act 4 are singled out), animations, music and voice acting draw steady praise, including in some reviews that recommend against the game. A few find the palette too brown and dark, and some note that the same visual richness causes the clarity and performance problems covered below.
A developer that visibly iteratesMedium
Reviewers credit the studio for frequent patches, fast hotfixes during the 0.5 league, clear patch notes, and changes that answered community feedback (async trade, sprint, easier gem management, the endgame rework). Others say balance swings, mid-league nerfs and persistent technical issues show the studio ignoring them.
In-game trading, co-op and controller playLow
The in-game asynchronous market and currency exchange are named as a big quality-of-life gain over the first game's trade website. Couch co-op and split-screen with controllers earn warm mentions, and one player calls the controller targeting "the best in the business". Each of these has its own caveats elsewhere: stash tabs are needed to sell, co-op scaling and effect clutter punish parties, and controller and mouse cannot be used together.
A helpful communityLow
A handful of reviewers say asking for help in chat works ("i asked for help and in just 1 second 3 people invited me") and call the community helpful and friendly. About as many describe chat as toxic or elitist toward newcomers.
Where players are split
Difficulty and pace: deliberate combat or a sluggish slogHigh
One camp loves that the game is slow, punishing and tactical, and some veterans even complain that 0.5 made it too easy, with bosses melting before their mechanics play out. The other camp finds the early game clunky and weak, bosses spongy with one-shot attacks, and act bosses (Jamanra in Act 2 and Viper Napuatzi in Act 3 are named more than once) as walls that stop casual players entirely. Reviewers on both sides describe an "identity crisis": the campaign is built around slow, careful combat, while the endgame turns into screen-clearing blasting like the first game, so each camp feels the game is betraying half its design. The most upvoted negative review puts it as a game that "doesn't know what it wants to be". Several players ask for difficulty options.
Complexity and the learning curveMedium
New players disagree about how hard it is to get in. Critics describe a game "nearly requiring a PHD in the game itself to understand how to build"; others write "I was intimidated by the complexity before starting, but I found it's really not that bad". The specifics: mechanics, crafting currencies and endgame systems are barely explained in game; players rely on YouTube, wikis, Path of Building and loot filters; and first characters often "brick" without a guide. Positive and negative reviews give new players the same advice, which is to follow a build guide for the first character. Players welcome the in-game build guide import added in 0.5.
Loot and the economyMedium
Reviews diverge by league and play style. Some say 0.5 finally made loot and currency rewarding, even in solo self-found. Others describe endgame gear coming almost entirely from the market rather than drops, most uniques being useless, rarity stacking dominating, and runaway inflation that leaves casual players priced out while bots, real-money traders and streamers race ahead. One reviewer describes bots that teleport to player shops and buy underpriced items the second they are listed.
Crafting: deep or a casinoMedium
Supporters say crafting became more approachable and even deterministic in places (essences, desecration, omens). Critics call it "a gambling simulator": no crafting bench, no scouring or alteration orbs, hundreds of currency types, and outcomes so random that buying finished gear is more efficient than crafting. Several reviewers felt 0.5 made crafting worse by removing tools and locking good results behind very expensive currency. 108 reviews tie crafting to gambling, casinos or RNG, 45 of them in reviews that still recommend the game; far fewer say they enjoy crafting or that it improved.
Monetization: fair cosmetics or paid necessitiesMedium
Few reviewers call the shop pay-to-win. The argument is over stash tabs and prices: many players say you effectively need currency, merchant and mechanic-specific tabs to play the endgame (selling on the market requires a paid tab), and that 40 to 80 dollar armour sets and loot boxes are excessive for a game that already charges for Early Access. Others counter that the Early Access purchase includes points that cover the essential tabs, that tabs carry over from the first game, and that frequent tab sales make it cheap. Specific grievances include stash tabs not being shared between PlayStation and PC, and first-game cosmetics not being ported.
Balance, nerfs and the metaMedium
Some reviewers say 0.5 brought the widest build variety yet. Others say only a handful of meta builds can finish endgame content, that +skill levels on weapons outweigh the passive tree, that energy shield is the only good defence, and that mid-league nerfs wasted days of progress (several cite the 0.4 temple hotfix and early 0.5 nerfs).
What frustrates players
Crashes, freezes and shader stutterHigh
678 of the 2,515 negative reviews mention crashes, freezes, stutter or poor performance. The details repeat from review to review: freezes of seconds to minutes followed by a cogwheel reload, shader recompilation on every map and every launch, "deadlock detected" crashes (DirectX 12 and Vulkan each fail differently), memory leaks that force restarts every hour or two, full-PC lockups and blue screens, and frame rates collapsing in juiced maps and busy towns even on high-end hardware. Several reviewers say 0.5 brought new crashes along with its content, while others report that later patches fixed their crashes and changed their verdict. A freeze in a boss fight usually means death, and the fixes players find are community workarounds (bigger shader cache, audio channel settings, launch options). The 140+ GB install size also draws complaints.
Servers, lag spikes and disconnectsHigh
Separate from client performance, 516 negative reviews mention lag, servers or disconnects. Players describe latency spikes into the thousands of milliseconds, rubber-banding into enemy attacks, and disconnects that erase maps, loot and trial runs, especially in the evening in Europe, in Southeast Asia (Singapore) and the Middle East, where some say there is no nearby server at all. Solo players who want an offline or single-player mode resent always-online play. Several reviewers noted that reconnecting to trials and resuming after crashes has improved.
Replaying a long campaign every league and every altHigh
305 negative reviews bring up the campaign, more than mention crafting (208) or the trials (179). Players accept playing it once, but not 10 to 30 hours of acts and interludes for every new league and every alternate character, with Act 3 and oversized maze-like zones named as the worst offenders. Some say this is why they only play one character per league, and ask for a skip or alternative leveling path after the first completion, citing other ARPGs that offer one. Some newer players like the campaign, and 0.5's streamlining is appreciated, but the request for a skip appears in positive and negative reviews alike.
Progress-eating bugsMedium
Reviewers list bugs that destroy time: maps that wipe all objectives if you die to the boss, quest lines and Atlas nodes that brick, breaches or simulacrum encounters that cannot be completed, trial portals that fail after the boss, minions that stop attacking bosses, skills and buffs that stop working after weapon swaps, and monsters that never spawn. Some say the same bugs persisted for weeks or across leagues, and a few suspect content is shipped without enough testing.
Ascendancy trials, especially the honor systemMedium
The most upvoted negative review in the slice (1,775 helpful votes) opens with "Trials unchanged, they are still the opposite of fun". The Trial of the Sekhemas "honor" bar fails a run for taking damage even when the character is healthy. Players say it punishes melee and thorns builds, turns a mandatory power unlock into a roguelike minigame, and wastes 30 to 60 minutes when a crash, disconnect or unseen hit ends a run. The Trial of Chaos draws similar anger for run-ending modifiers and random key drops. One reviewer says "basically everybody buys a sekhemas carry" for characters after their first of the league. A few say later tuning made the trials tolerable.
Deaths that are hard to see and costly to takeMedium
Two complaints travel together. First, clarity: one-shots from off-screen attacks, ground effects hidden under the player's own spell effects, minions or map clutter, on-death explosions, bosses whose attacks are obscured, and no death recap to explain what happened. Party play multiplies the clutter, and players ask for effect opacity sliders. Second, the cost: losing 10% of a level at high levels, losing a juiced map and all its content on death with limited portals, and boss deaths resetting the map empty. Reviewers say the combination makes the endgame feel punishing for reasons outside their control, particularly when a freeze causes the death.
Sprinting, stuns and slow movementLow
Sprint, added to speed up the large zones, draws complaints because touching an enemy (or a party member) trips the character into a heavy stun. Reviewers also cite slow base movement, few movement skills, and getting body-blocked by monster packs. The dodge roll itself is loved by some and called a gimmick by others.
Melee feels like hard modeLow
Players who prefer melee say it is weaker and riskier than ranged play: bosses and on-death effects punish close range, the honor trials are brutal for melee, and some weapon lines (maces, the Warrior) are called undertuned, though a few reviewers joke that Warrior needs a nerf.
Account lockouts and unhelpful supportLow
A small but angry group describes hacked accounts being permanently banned for third-party software use by the hacker, bans after refunds or regional-price purchases while traveling, and support that told them to create a new account and buy the game again, losing years of purchases. One reviewer reported a ban reversed after persistent appeals.
The misleading "50% off" saleLow
During a sale in early June 2026 the discounted Early Access pack came with 150 points instead of the usual 300, which several reviewers call half the product for half the price. One of those reviews, with 60 helpful votes, is among the dozen most upvoted negative reviews in the slice.
Missing classes and weapons after a long Early AccessLow
Swords are still missing, and reviewers keep pointing it out ("Still no swords, exile?"), along with missing classes and acts. Some players question paid Early Access running this long with seasonal leagues, and a few doubt 1.0 will be complete.
Interface and quality-of-life gapsLow
Smaller recurring items: no mixing of controller and mouse (the input mode is locked), a small inventory with no sort, unique character names that are almost all taken, no ultrawide 32:9 support, having to use a town well to refill flasks, tooltips that hide real damage numbers, and stash tabs not shared across platforms.
3. The player conversation
A third of all reviews are brief positive notes from players with more than 100 hours. The negative reviews tend to be long and detailed, and many come from dedicated players who keep playing while voting it down. The patch diaries mostly tell the same story: an exciting 0.1 launch, the 0.2 "Dawn of the Hunt" nerfs remembered as the low point, gradual recovery through 0.3 and 0.4, and 0.5 as the moment the game "became a real game". Reviews first posted in launch week of December 2024 ran about 65% positive, those posted around the 0.2 update in spring 2025 about 72 to 75%.
Reviews first posted in the weeks the 0.5 update and the half-points sale arrived (late May and the first week of June 2026) were only 55 to 58% positive, the lowest of any week with 30 or more reviews, and they dwell on crashes, lag and the sale. From the second week of June the share rose to 74 to 78%, then held mostly between 80 and 87% through July and August (with one week at 75%), settling around 77 to 80% in September. Positive and negative reviewers often describe the same problems and differ on whether the design strengths outweigh them. Trials, the campaign, crafting and the economy are long-time players' complaints: each comes up in 9 to 14% of negative reviews from players with 100+ hours and in 3% or fewer of those from players under ten hours, while technical problems appear in both groups (35% and 27%).
4. What the developers could do
- Fix crashes, freezes and shader recompilation before 1.0. Negative reviews raise technical problems more than anything else, with players describing minutes-long cogwheel reloads, deadlock crashes and stutter that kill characters, and a couple asking for an option to precompile shaders once.
- Stabilize servers and protect progress from disconnects. Lag spikes and disconnects in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East cost players maps, loot and trial runs, and some solo players ask for an offline or disconnect-safe mode.
- Offer a campaign skip or alternative leveling path after the first completion each league. Players across both verdicts say replaying 10 to 30 hours of acts for every league and alt is why they stop at one character.
- Make deaths readable and less ruinous. Reviewers ask for a death recap, effect opacity sliders for their own, party and ground effects, and for boss deaths to stop wiping the map and its objectives on top of the 10% experience loss.
- Rework the honor-based ascendancy trials. The trials are the subject of the most upvoted negative review in the slice, the honor bar hits melee builds hardest, and players want the mandatory ascendancy unlock to be neither a no-hit minigame nor lost to a crash.
- Clear the backlog of progress-breaking bugs before adding content. Bricked maps and quest lines, uncompletable encounters and trial portals that fail are described as persisting across patches, and several players say they want fixes prioritised over new mechanics.
- Make basic storage and selling part of the base game and keep sales honest. Players accept cosmetic prices more readily than paying to sell items or store currency, and the half-points "50% off" sale drew angry negative reviews.
- Give hacked or wrongly flagged accounts a real appeal path. Players banned after account theft, refunds or travel purchases describe being told to buy the game again, which turned long-time spenders into vocal critics.
