Peter James Mann
This time, Gamer Dad games alone…
I wash upon the shore in the midst of a midnight storm. There was one other survivor from the shipwreck. We, unfortunately, made it to our intended destination: Wraeclast. There are others, in a small colony, further inland. But before I can learn more, a bloated corpse awakens next to the injured man and kills him before attacking me.
I shut the laptop shut, realizing quite quickly what I’ve just undertaken: A game I must carve out time for alone. A game for grownups only. This, in and of itself, is an undertaking I’ve avoided for some time. But, this game is free. That is extremely important to me right now. I’ve also wanted to try a more in-depth, grindy, crunchy game. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to play something like this.
Time to go to work.
Path of Exile is an Action Role Playing Game (ARPG) developed by Grinding Gear Games, who themselves are all former members of the Diablo II Development Team from Blizzard’s hayday. That pedigree alone is enough to peak my interests. The only reason why I hadn’t played up until this point was every time I tried on my older set up, it was a laggy, disgusting mess. But now, I can play this game in its highest settings and, well, now it’s a beautiful, disgusting mess.
This game has an unapologetic amount of gore. Searchable bodies sometimes fall apart or leak or worse things that I’m not sure I can actually write on here, let alone show. So, this is not a game for the faint of heart when it comes to blood and please, for the love of everything holy, don’t play this around your kids.
There are a few modes to choose from: Standard, Ultimatum, and Hardcore Ultimatum. Standard is, well, standard. This is the original Path of Exile experience. Ultimatum is a seasonal league that currently includes a random emissary of the Chaos God to offer you a significant challenge for a unique reward. Hardcore Ultimatum is this, plus if the character dies they become locked in the Standard League. Hardcore Ultimatum it is.
There are 5 starting classes to choose from in the beginning: Templar, Shadow, Marauder, Ranger, Duelist, and Witch. There is a 7th class to unlock later in the game, Scion, but we do not get far enough to unlock it for this review. I choose for my Hardcore run to be SabrinaaTheTeenage Witch. She washes upon the shores of Wraeclast and, wand in tow, shoots Magic Missiles and Fire Bolts like a D&D Wizard. It feels EXACTLY like how I want D&D to feel and I love every moment.
The spell effects are also amazing. The way each flame licks up, the way the light diffuses across the surface and surrounding enemies, it truly is a beautiful sight. By the time I get to Lioneye’s Watch, SabrinaaTheTeenage Witch already has a new mission: to get medical supplies from The Coast.
There was no time to delay, so I traded what I could, hoping for gold, to see that the economy is based solely on trade. Each item correlates with scraps or shards of an item that stack to create that item, like a Scroll of Identity, or an Orb of Transmutation. This is actually a really cool way to narratively show that these people are all Exiles. Why would Gold still be a thing in that scenario, if only to get you those things in the first place. It’s these finer touches to the overall world that really sucked me in.
At the area of the map SabrinaaTheTeenage finds the supplies, the emissary of the Chaos God appears amongst brimstone and pentagrams. The Taskmaster steps forth and offers her a set of gauntlets in exchange for completing the challenge. She accepts.
My phone rings. It’s my wife and she’s been out with the kids running errands. I frantically hit escape and pick up the phone.
“Hello?” I answer in my higher pitched Dad voice. My eyes have not left the screen. I notice the action behind the “pause menu” is still happening. I click to resume. SabrinaaThe Teenage Witch lies motionless below a pop-up stating that she died. I click the “Okay” button to be brought back to the start menu.
“Peter?! Are you there?!”
“You cut out.”
“I said we’ll be there soon, I’ll need help with the groceries.”
“I died.”
“What?”
“I died.”
“Okay…”
“It was a permadeath thing. Like a one and done thing.”
“…Well that’s stupid. You can’t like pause it or?-”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, that’s stupid. I am sorry your character died though. We’ll be home soon. Bye, love you.”
“Love you, bye.” A week of bug bite gameplay sessions compressed into one singular moment of loss, pain and suffering. She was as strong as she was fragile, powerful as she was frail, and her memory shall live on infinitely in my heart.
…
RipleyCroft, my new hunter washes upon the shores of Wraeclast. There’s a survivor, oh no a zombie, more zombies, giant zombie, Lioneye’s Watch, medical supplies, SCREW YOU, TASKMASTER! Next Stop: The Mud Flats!
Once I got to this point, I was curious as to what the melee options might be like and, well, I have to say I was a little disappointed. I like the IDEA of being a Marauder or a Templar or a Shadow. The Duelist doesn’t really fit in my opinion narratively speaking, especially with the world that I got to experience, but that’s a digression. They all felt kind of one-note. They all felt very easily overwhelmed when surrounded by enemies unless an Area of Effect (AoE) ability was unlocked. But even so, most of those attacks didn’t feel as powerful as I would have liked.
Which brings me to the D&D point I touched on earlier. There are several high-profile games who have tried to capture the D&D magic in a bottle. Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic famously used “dice rolling” in the background to determine hits and misses. The Divinity: Original Sin series is also tied intrinsically to this D&D in a video game idea, but they don’t feel as good as Diablo II or Path of Exile does.
Does it match one-to-one with rules and classes and mechanics? No, it doesn’t. But, what it does very well is make me feel like I’m playing D&D as fast as it goes in my head. The soundtrack, the visual effects, the grimdark world, it makes me feel like I’m playing an Old School game in someone’s basement and I’ve got a character sheet full of cool stuff I can do.
Those melee characters don’t really get a ton of cool stuff to do other than stronger, quicker attacks, or a sneak attack mechanic. That’s great to help out other players in multiplayer, but not in a solo game for this player. So I really loved being ranged and having some magic to play with.
And each time I jumped in, even if I didn’t get very far, I didn’t feel punished. If anything, I got cooler stuff and better stats because of it. Each area is randomly generated along with the gear that is dropped. I still felt progression and movement forward. I still wanted to explore those areas again because of new stuff! That was a great feeling to have.
If you are able to play it, I see no reason why you shouldn’t jump in and try. It’s free to play, only cosmetic items are sold (so no fear of pay-to-win players), the community is genuinely helpful in the chat, the graphics are great, the gameplay is awesome, the gameplay loop is addicting, and a sequel comes out soon. Go download it on Steam, Xbox, or the Playstation store. You won’t be disappointed.
