Highlights
- Grinding Gear Games developers recently commented on the Diablo 4 Season 1 controversy, saying that they feel for Blizzard and noting that it is hard to adapt to a seasonal format.
- Path of Exile and Diablo have benefited from each other's existence, with Path of Exile being a refuge for Diablo fans during the darker days of Diablo 3.
- While Diablo 4 faces backlash over its recent design choices, the solution lies in Blizzard's hands, and Path of Exile 2 may provide valuable feedback for it as well as the wider hack-and-slash genre.
Grinding Gear Games has started to showcase the full scope of its vision for Path of Exile 2, but during a recent interview, the stuio also offered some insight into the situation currently plaguing Diablo 4. Though the gaming community as a whole would consider the two franchises rivals, Path of Exile and Diablo have largely benefited from each other's existence. Path of Exile was born out of an admiration of what Diablo 2 did for the hack-and-slash genre, and for many Diablo fans, it was a refuge during the darkest days of Diablo 3.
Eventually, Reaper of Souls and Path of Exile established themselves as two philosophically different, yet equally successful pillars of the genre, and now Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4 are the second generation of this camaraderie. The highly-anticipated sequel to Path of Exile is shedding the systems bloat of its predecessor, and Grinding Gear Games has announced a Closed Beta for Summer 2024. By contrast, Diablo 4 recently launched Season of the Malignant, its first post-release content, and player reception has been anything but stellar.
In an interview with IGN during ExileCon 2023, director Jonathan Rogers reacted to the backlash that Blizzard was facing over its recent design choices, stating that it's a hard learning process for running a live-service title with a Season format. Chris Wilson chimed in that there are times when a developer looks at features from its game, and realizes that it wants to slow things down. While this may explain the current controversy in Diablo 4, the solution ultimately rests in Blizzard's hands.
Rogers went on to say that he felt bad for the developers of Diablo 4, and though he was certain that the game's approach can be successful, it's not the one he personally prefers. As a contrast to Path of Exile 2, Rogers claimed that Diablo 4 was on an MMO trajectory, citing it as the main difference between the two games. Longer cooldowns and a sprawling open world are right at home in Diablo 4, but are antithetical to the design philosophy in Path of Exile 2.
In terms of what Path of Exile fans can expect in the sequel, it's a bigger focus on combat, with a hardcore bent. Instead of juggling their cooldowns around, Path of Exile 2 will allow players to always be in full control of their character, and react accordingly to the situation in front of them. Given the notoriety of balance tweaks that Path of Exile has endured over its lifespan, Rogers hopes that the team will get it mostly right during the Closed Beta. Though the game is over a year away, Diablo 4 fans may find Path of Exile 2 to be a worthwhile source of feedback for Blizzard to draw upon, as the hack-and-slash genre has long been at its strongest when both these franchises thrived.
Path of Exile 2 is currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: IGN
