It’s the month of the beta, apparently, with Fortnite and Path of Exile both flexing their console muscles in August. While Fortnite is technically in a “paid early access,” the Path of Exile is a true beta, likely to test server loads and such before an official launch. Aside from an open beta, this had to be one of the easiest previews to get into, requiring only an email address in order to receive a code. I signed up and was playing within a couple of hours.
Fans of Diablo or old-school action RPG’s like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance will feel right at home here, and in fact you’d swear those developing PoE may have had a hand in some of those older titles as well.
Having put a few hours into it, I have to say it’s coming along much better than I had anticipated. There is a bit of wonkiness that comes with a transition from point and click to an analog controller, but nothing that hasn’t been present in other similar games, and it’s handled pretty well. For example, aiming a bow or spell is a matter of pushing the analog stick in an enemy’s direction and if they highlight, you’re on target. Sometimes the aiming can get sticky and if you don’t release your attack button it can be tricky to select a different enemy to attack, but so far it hasn’t caused too much of an issue. Stacks of loot on the ground can be cycled through using the Right Thumbstick until you highlight the desired loot to be picked up.
A small complaint in this regard is that grabbing loot uses the same button as attacking, so there have been a few times I’ve gone into my inventory only to see a number of items I didn’t remember picking up, and likely grabbed by accident while fighting. It hasn’t happened too often, but still results in a bit of unnecessary inventory management.
The inventory screen is decent, but can become a bit cluttered when trying to equip new items. As of now, I don’t see a “compare” feature to see how a new piece matches up with a currently equipped piece, so we’re relegated to tapping back and forth to look at stats on different items. It would be nice to have a separate window off to the side with the information, as opposed to the pop up boxes that currently obscure the rest of the inventory screen. It’s a little clumsy, but UI tweaks like this are usually saved for post-launch patches rather than the bugs and stability issues that are far more important in a beta phase.
One thing they must address are the disconnects. It happened several times during a two-hour play session, and each time I had to leave the public hub and travel back to where I was before. The first two times were an inconvenience, the third time was a sign it was time to do something else. This is most likely something that will be addressed before the public launch, so it’s not a huge issue yet, but it is something that will kill a community pretty damn quick.
It’s so far, so good for Path of Exile. The skill tree is huge and the graphics are pretty. My only question is if the financial side of the F2P model will carry over well enough onto consoles to see Grinding Gear Games make a profit. So far the camera seems pulled back pretty far from the character, so will special outfits and character effects be worth people supporting the game for?
It’ll be interested to see how well the game is received vs. how much money it actually makes.
