Why Path Of Exile 2 Will Drop Almost The Full Game Into Closed Beta And Other New Info From Game Director Jonathan Rogers

ARPG, particularly Path of Exile, players are interested in finding out more and more about Path of Exile 2 as information on the upcoming game continues to roll out. Of course, we’re still a bit away from launch. Closed beta doesn’t even begin until June 7, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to know everything.

The good news for us, then, is that Path of Exile 2 Game Director Jonathan Rogers has been doing interviews about the game lately. He’s also been busy over on the Path of Exile subreddit answering questions. If you’d rather not dig through all of that, you can get some of your answers from an interview he did yesterday with Kripparian.

The interview was conducted via Twitch so, yes, we’ll be embedding it below. It’s a fairly lengthy interview as well so no, we won’t be covering everything here. Some of the questions are Kripp’s own, and others are questions asked on behalf of the community. They cover everything from the WASD movement to how the devs are looking at making the game more accessible for new players without taking away what existing Path of Exile players love.

We'll share a few of the highlights here. For the rest, watch the stream below, beginning around the 1 hour 30 minute mark. The interview lasts about an hour and a half, so maybe get yourself some tea and snacks.

One of the big things Grinding Gear Games introduced during the last PoE stream was the fact that Grinding Gear Games was adding WASD movement in Path of Exile 2. This change wasn’t decided upon with controllers in mind. The team was just looking for what felt good. According to Rogers, the game’s design keeps the movement from feeling too limited. Particularly since the characters are always facing where the mouse is on screen. Rogers feels that it works well, even in melee – which he originally had doubts about.

The conversation focuses on classes quite a bit. While continuing the topic of movement, Rogers pointed out that while some skills can be used while moving, not all skills can. It’s intended to be a limited thing, and even the skills that do allow for it will have penalties.

Continuing with skills, the two discussed skill gems. Players can enhance their chosen class using these gems. they can be used on any class, meaning players can create something a bit more personal. The only thing locked behind the class is the ascendances. The idea is to create a system that appeals to more players. That said, the class organization makes the game easier to get into on a base level. The gems and related skills can be picked up later.

Another skill-related topic addressed was shapeshifting. It seems this is going to be possible across the board, meaning players can use it in builds for classes that you might not even think of as a shapeshifting class. They’ll get the opportunity to make some really interesting builds that aren’t restricted to their class and it’s going to make things wild.

If existing Path of Exile players are worried about GGG simplifying the game, they don’t intend to do that. That said, they do want to have a way to ease players into what is a complex game, so they’re working on systems like tooltips – and of course the skill gem system – to help them along. They’re also just kind of grabbing people who’ve never played the game before to test PoE 2’s usability.

The interview also covers item distribution. There have been cases where so many items have dropped in PoE 1 that it’s caused people to drop connection. They don’t want this to be an issue, so they’re looking at balancing that based on player percentile.

Of course, we know when closed beta is going to take place. We also now know it’s going to be big. The plan is to release the entire game for closed beta, with the exception of some of the endgame. Rogers estimates players will have access to around 60 maps and a few other endgame systems. The reason for dropping the whole game as the closed beta is to test progression and the game’s economy.

There’s also a somewhat selfish reason for doing this. GGG wants players to see that PoE 2 is bigger than any other ARPG, even in its closed beta version.

As noted, there was a lot more covered during the stream than what we have here. You can watch the whole thing below.