Path of Exile 2 sequel has been long, long in the making. The original game came out in 2013, and it’s forged a reputation as one of the deepest isometric CRPGs ever made. So deep, in fact, that to say it isn’t particularly friendly for newcomers would be an understatement. You pretty much have to sit down, study, and learn a thesis worth of information before jumping in. Even veterans actively encourage newbies to approach with guides and tutorials before hitting the Play button. It’s also widely accepted that the use of third-party tools to streamline the experience are a must.
As you might imagine, Path of Exile 2’s console launch has many prospective players wondering whether such tools will be made available. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer is no. Third-party tools have and always will be PC-only applications given that it’s difficult to build that functionality into console ecosystems. On Summer Games Fest’s show floor, I sat down and played 30 or so minutes of the game’s new Witcher character class in co-op alongside Grinding Gear Games developer Christopher Laferriere who explained:
“We do have some inbuilt filtering in the game at launch. If you want a simple basic filter and you don’t want to customize them yourself, the in-game filters are certainly capable of that.
We don’t want to take away the option for players to be able to create those third-party tools and use them to accomplish things, so they will definitely still exist because there are going to be players that want to optimize the game as much as they possibly can. To do that, even if we provided tons and tons of things in-game for that, there would be something we overlooked, and people would want that…
… Since they are generally tools that are built by third parties, they most likely will not come to consoles. However, we are designing the game in a way that attempts to take some of that information (third-party tools typically provide) and bake it into the game. We also have further improvements to the trading system coming in PoE 2 that Jonothan (Rogers) has talked about in interviews, such as separating out a currency market that you can just directly interact with in the game. So all of that is going to make it smoother, but especially the kind of playerbase that gravitates toward Path of Exile is always going to find some third-party tool that they want to make or use.”
Perhaps not quite the answer that many console players would have been looking for; after all, exactly how the Path of Exile 2 experience is set to feel on console is a hot potato topic. Not that the original game didn’t come to console, of course, but the sequel is being designed with consoles in mind, as opposed to coming later as a port. Could Grinding Gear have put some sort of Creation Club-like functionality into the game to allow developers to import third-party developed tools? I’m no developer, but surely that’s feasible?
In any case, what I would say about my time with PoE 2 at Summer Games Fest is that it certainly did feel intuitive playing on a controller. The tutorial section of the game didn’t feel overwhelming experiencing it exactly how console players will, and I could feel myself getting comfy even after just a short sting playing with Christopher.
