Skip to main content PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES Search PC Gamer View Profile Movies & TV Gaming Industry PC Gaming Show Newsletter Signup Community Guidelines Affiliate Links Meet the team About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine Subscription Why subscribe? Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From£35.99View Baldur's Gate 3 Doom: The Dark Ages Marvel Rivals Path of Exile 2 backlash gives Last Epoch a 150,000-player boost Jody Macgregor 18 April 2025 As one action RPG stumbles, another accelerates past it. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The 0.2.0 update for Path of Exile 2 has not been well-received to put it lightly. A heavy hand on the nerf hammer has driven away a significant chunk of those players who like action RPGs for the monster-blasting action, revealing a core tension at the heart of Path of Exile 2's design, as Russell Adderson put it. Eleventh Hour Games, the studio behind competing action RPG Last Epoch, put itself in the perfect position to benefit—like Jon Lovitz lurking behind the curtain off-stage in The Wedding Singer. It delayed Last Epoch's Season 2 update, Tombs of the Erased, launching at the perfect time to pick up a bunch of disaffected Path of Exile 2 players. "We've recently learned that our friends in the ARPG space have chosen a release date just a couple days after ours which would divide the player base and hinder the success of our Season 2 launch", as game director Judd "Moxx" Cobbler announced on the Last Epoch forum, explaining that Tombs of the Erased would instead launch on April 17. You may like Path of Exile 2's nerf-happy update has the playerbase revolting, review-bombing their baby, and scorning the developer's promises: 'Like reading a Blizzard post on fixing Diablo 4' Path of Exile 2 director isn't worried about ARPG competition, in part thanks to seasons: 'So long as people are willing to come back and play our game for a month four times a year, then I'm good' As SteamDB shows, it worked. Last Epoch went from a few thousand concurrent players to 150,198 when Season 2 started, and is currently number 6 in Steam's top 10 most-played games, right between Bongo Cat and Baldur's Gate 3. Tombs of the Erased is a significant update for Last Epoch, representing "over 100 pages internally of patch notes". The sentinel class has been completely reworked and the rogue marksman given a new skill, six new endgame crafting methods added, and the titular Tombs of the Erased are new side zones that apparently form "the foundation for interacting with our new endgame systems". It's a hefty addition and revision, and players are already celebrating its success by meming on Path of Exile 2. Still, I can't help but think it's a bit of a devil's bargain to trade one constantly updating live-service action RPG for another—especially when Grim Dawn is right there. Borderlands 4: What we know so far Borderlands 3 Shift codes: Golden key connection Tiny Tina's Shift codes: Free skeleton keys Best FPS games: Finest gaming gunplay The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Path of Exile 2 Jody Macgregor Social Links Navigation Weekend/AU Editor Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Path of Exile 2's nerf-happy update has the playerbase revolting, review-bombing their baby, and scorning the developer's promises: 'Like reading a Blizzard post on fixing Diablo 4' Path of Exile 2 director isn't worried about ARPG competition, in part thanks to seasons: 'So long as people are willing to come back and play our game for a month four times a year, then I'm good' Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters? Path of Exile 2's 0.2 update wasn't all bad: The endgame finally feels like it's headed in the right direction Since Path of Exile's expansion has been delayed, players are instead getting a month-long event featuring 'whacky ideas that never quite made it off the brainstorm board' The biggest update since Path of Exile 2's early access launch is coming next week, bringing a new class and a bunch of endgame changes Latest in RPG Path of Exile 2 backlash gives Last Epoch a 150,000-player boost Thanks to Baldur's Gate 3's new Swashbuckler subclass, it no longer sucks to be a pure Rogue Path of Exile 2's 0.2 update wasn't all bad: The endgame finally feels like it's headed in the right direction Forget Baldur's Gate 3's new subclasses: Patch 8's most disgusting power gamer combo is the Rock That Makes You Stupid paired with a sneakily revamped level 2 spell Baldur's Gate 3's excellent new photo mode is full of details, dances, and poses for your cat—as well as 7 different ways to vogue, because why not Former BioWare producer says Baldur's Gate 3's impact on game dev will be 'somewhat muted' thanks to industry convention, and I can't help think we've got it all backwards Latest in News Path of Exile 2 backlash gives Last Epoch a 150,000-player boost I don't know why early 2000s internet is suddenly back, but both Ask a Ninja and Homestar Runner have just uploaded new videos Co-op submarine survival simulator Barotrauma has a free weekend on Steam, so dive in with friends and experience the most comically horrifying deaths you can imagine Rematch, the soccer game from the maker of Sifu and Absolver, is holding an open beta this weekend Thanks to Baldur's Gate 3's new Swashbuckler subclass, it no longer sucks to be a pure Rogue 22-year-old MMO MapleStory is getting the 'old school' treatment with the original lead game designer in charge of new classic servers HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads Best graphics card for laptops in 2025: the mobile GPUs I'd want in my next gaming laptop Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most Best 14-inch gaming laptop in 2025: The top compact gaming laptops I've held in these hands Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I've tested MSI RTX 5060 Ti 16G Gaming Trio OC review Tempopo review Tempest Rising review Corsair Void Wireless V2 review Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB review (Palit Infinity 3) PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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