Is Path of Exile Worth Playing in 2021? | Game Rant
Path of Exile recently had some setbacks, complaints from the community, and technical issues with League and expansion launches, much like what has been happening in the few hours since Ultimatum's launch. However, PoE still succeeded in breaking its own records in terms of numbers of active players and player retention percentage throughout 2020 and with Ritual in 2021.
Then, there is Path of Exile 2 coming, with Path of Exile players being extremely enthusiastic at the prospect of playing a whole new story, with new characters, new skills, and new everything basically. The reception from the community has been incredible, and the future for Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 is looking bright on the content side of things.
Despite all this, some players do not agree with the direction Grinding Gear Games is heading towards. First of all, GGG decided to nerf the only proper way to deterministically craft items in Path of Exile - namely, Harvest. This left many fans with a bad, sour taste in their mouths, as the League content didn't have to be nerfed so hard without an alternative. Second, Cyberpunk 2077 delaying the launch of PoE's Ritual League was interpreted by some simply as a business decision, rather than a calculated risk because of how bad some previous launches were.
Then, there were the rocky launches of Heist and now Ultimatum, with the latter being even more serious. In fact, GGG decided to hand over to streamers and content creators the priority to skip the queue for logging in on launch day, which on its own made lots of players angry and sets a bad precedent, as if it was a way to say that all players are equal, but some are special. Not only that, but the queue has been insufferably long and slow, and players have not been able to access the League. Some did, and they either played a couple of minutes before being disconnected or they were kicked back to the log-in screen right away. Furthermore, some other players had their microtransactions deleted when trying to use them.
One of the most common lines of reasoning for fans when a sequel to their beloved game is announced is that the original game will eventually fade, basically that it doesn't make sense anymore to play it. With Path of Exile 2 approaching, albeit very slowly, gamers are concerned for the future of Path of Exile and how things will inevitably change. Path of Exile 2 might make upcoming features for the original game look more trivial, potentially insignificant even; on the other hand, Path of Exile is very likely to become a testing ground for its sequel.
This is not a bad thing, as players still devoting their time to Path of Exile will be able to appreciate how the game is going to change into Path of Exile 2 in a more gradual, rewarding way. New skills might be introduced which look a lot like products of the effort going into PoE 2, and this applies to other features as well. Think of Blazing Salvo and Flame Wall, for example, which were clearly thought to be played together when they were added back in Heist. Still, that sort of gameplay is not quite in line with the speed meta of Path of Exile, so players ended up picking either of them, but not both. This will change with Path of Exile 2, with greater build variety and lots of fully supported skills to play with for a more complete experience.
It's not that hard to see how Path of Exile, despite its issues, will still remain a relevant game in 2021 (and, likely, in 2022 as well). There will be updates with embryos and prototypes of features that will be going through player scrutiny, and these features are likely to be a glimpse into the future of the game and the franchise as a whole. Lastly, another great reason to keep playing PoE this year is to experience the Echoes of the Atlas expansion that launched back in January, with the addition of the first-ever passive skill tree for the Atlas regions, enhancing all of the past Leagues in terms of gameplay.
Path of Exile is available to play on Mac, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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