Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients Review
The Ultimate Action Role-Playing Game Experience
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN DISCUSSIONS involving SPOILERS FROM Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients. CONSIDER WHEN AND WHERE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO READ THIS PIECE.Platforms
We reviewed our copy of Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients on PC via Steam. Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients is currently available on PC via Steam and Epic Games, as well as on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, all as an early access game.The Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) is a niche genre with only a handful of notable games to its name. For nearly two decades, the Diablo franchise has dominated this space, making it very tough for any other ARPGs to enter the market. Developers of the Path of Exile franchise, Grinding Gear Games (GGG), sought to change that with their game, and over the most recent decade, Diablo and Path of Exile have battled over the title of best ARPG. With the early access release of Path of Exile 2 (POE2) in 2025 and its most recent update, Return of the Ancients, the franchise has far surpassed Diablo in nearly every aspect. From first-time to veteran status players, POE2 offers a unique, addicting, and endlessly re-playable experience for all fans of the ARPG genre.
Personally, I had never played POE2 prior to the Return of the Ancients update that was released on May 29, 2026. However, I am deeply familiar with the ARPG genre after playing Diablo 3 and 4 a decent amount over the last decade. Since I had the Diablo games, POE2 was never on my radar. But after some questionable updates of Diablo 4 in early 2025, I have not been interested in playing Diablo despite still wanting to play ARPGs. The release of POE2 Return of the Ancients presented me with the perfect opportunity to get back into the genre while also learning a game that was completely new to me. If there is one takeaway from my dozens of hours in POE2 over past month, it is this: I am not going back to the Diablo games any time soon. This is not to say that POE2 does not have its fair share of issues, it does and I will go over them, but the progression and end game far exceed anything I have ever played in the ARPG genre.
Before jumping into the review, it is important to understand what ARPG is because it is definitely not a genre for everyone. ARPGs, like POE2, typically have a top-down view of a player’s character and the gameplay is defeating endless hordes of increasingly more difficult monsters. In return, the player is awarded with loot in the form of gear and currency that can make the character stronger. In short, the gameplay loop is all about character progression and incremental power gains to be able to take on harder content. Especially in POE2, there is a ton of game knowledge needed to do this effectively and take on the hardest content in the game. Unlike many other games genres, ARPGs are not about the instant gratification, rather it is about the build up to massive loot payouts that makes all the prior gameplay feel worth it.
Early Game
For an ARPG, the POE2 campaign story is actually pretty good. It is classic “Grimdark” fantasy where the player chooses a character from one of several classes, each with their own specialty. After narrowly escaping execution at the hands of a corrupt Count, the character enters a world that is being overrun by dark powers. Fighting through the hordes, the character eventually progresses to the point where they take revenge on the Count for nearly being executed. Upon defeating the Count, the character finds that the real source of corruption is the Countess who is trying to revive an ancient calamity known as “The Beast”. The Countess escapes, which concludes Act one of four plus an interlude. From Act two through the interlude, the character pursues the Countess in hopes of thwarting her plans but ultimately fails and The Beast is revived.
A typical scene in POE2
The entire campaign takes between 10 and 20 hours to complete and brings the character’s level up to between 60 and 70, which is an important break point to be able to enter the end game. Despite The Beast being revived, there is never a point where the character gets to fight it. Instead, the end game is all about preparing for The Beast fight, which is presumably going to be available on the POE2 full release scheduled for the end of 2026. Essentially, the entire campaign allows the player to learn how to build and play their character while the end game teaches the player about the rest of the game mechanics, of which there are many.
End Game Progression
What I have come to see is that the end game is where POE2 really starts, and how it has cemented itself as the best ARPG. It is where dozens if not hundreds of hours can be spent on building a single character and exploring the endless end game content. Nearly all the new content from the Return of the Ancients update is also accessible in the end game. That being said, there is so much in the end game that I cannot possibly discuss it all in this review. So, to best encapsulate the end game, I will discuss it in three different categories: Mapping, Currency, and Crafting.
At the start of the end game, the player is set loose in map of the POE2 world that has endless nodes. Each node is a map that players can open and run with a “Waystone” to get loot and currency drops (i.e. mapping). The difficulty of these maps can be augmented by the level and affixes attached to the waystone used, and the harder it is, the more rewarding. Moreover, these maps can be further augmented by exploring further into the endgame world to unlock “Atlas Points”, which basically augment maps in simple ways. Lastly, “Tablets” augment the maps in a more complex and specific ways, allowing players to target specific types of encounters based on what they like or is most lucrative.
Mentioned a few times above, currency is a core part of the POE2 end game and is obtained by mapping. Each currency can be used from one of two things:
The gear system
Currency can be spent to craft gear. This is a much larger and complex conversation, so more on it later.
Currency can be traded via the “Currency Exchange” for different, more valuable currency to then be used to purchase power upgrades in the form of gear, gems, jewels, and much more from other players on the “Gear Market”. This process is very streamlined as long as the player knows what they are looking for; if not, it is not so easy. Because the market is player driven, it is subject to economic effects of supply and demand. In my opinion, the currency exchange and gear market are really interesting mechanics that mix up the gameplay from just killing infinite monsters for hours on end.
New in the Return of the Ancients update is the “Verisium Remnant Runes” that can be found in any map. Remnant runes allow players to target specific currency based on the rarity of the rune. This mechanic has allowed both new and veteran players to obtain currency in an easier to understand way, thus allowing players to craft or participate in the market earlier on in their end game progression.
Finally, crafting gear is by far the most complex system POE2 offers. In most other ARPGs, power upgrades come from gear dropped by defeating powerful monsters. In POE2, the majority of upgrades come from crafting, either from the player making their own gear or using the gear market to purchase other players’ crafts. To be honest, I am not even close to fully understanding crafting gear myself and have opted to buy all my gear off the gear market. I probably need another few hundred hours in the game to grasp gear crafting. However, from what I understand, gear can have six total mods (with exceptions) and these mods apply different ranges of stats to the player’s character. Mods also have tiers, eight being the worst and one being the best, so a great piece of gear would be one with all ideal tier one mods. Every currency functions as a way to change these mods, make them better, or in general give the player a chance at creating a good piece of gear. There are hundreds of different currencies, so learning what they all do and how to effectively use them is extremely time intensive.
In summary, the end game loop starts with mapping to earn currency to interact with the markets, then players can either opt in or out of crafting gear for themselves or to sell. This cycle repeats itself endlessly or until the player is content with their character’s power.
Mixtape Review
This game is so much more than a nostalgia grabThe Live Service Aspect
To wrap up this review, POE2 is a seasonal live service game. This means that the game is constantly getting new content and updates, but every six-ish months there is massive new update. POE2 Return of the Ancients is that massive update and the current season is called the “Runes of Aldur”, which refers to the verisium remnant runes content I mentioned above. In six months, there will be another massive new update. This is what keeps players coming back every season (including me now) to create a new character and play the new content in tandem with all the old.
Now for the issues with POE2. All the issues boil down to one major issue. POE2 is not well optimized to run on middle to low end gaming PCs (I cannot speak to consoles), even high end PCs can have issues. I encountered a lot of frame rate loss, game crashes, and other performance issues throughout my time playing. On top of that, end game builds spam the screen with abilities, flashy animations, and loot, so the further I got in the game, the more frequent and worse my performance issues. This also made the visual clarity of enemy mechanics much harder to see and avoid, causing me to die quite often. While this did not ruin my enjoyment, it detracted from my experience. POE2 is still in early access so these issues could be fixed upon full release, but I doubt it given its part of the gameplay.
Despite those issues, I thoroughly enjoyed POE2 Return of the Ancients and will continue to play the game for the foreseeable future. I would love to recommend this game to everyone, but I cannot do that for three reasons. The first is that POE2 is an ARPG and this genre is not for everyone, not to mention it is much more complex than other games in the genre. The second stems from the issues I detailed above. The third reason for not being able to recommend POE2 to everyone is that the end game can feel repetitive and grindy. If any one of those three things is a red flag to you, I do not recommend you try this game. However, if no red flags have been raised for you over the course of this review, I would absolutely recommend you try POE2. I picked it up on a 50% off sale (i.e. $15) and have made it well worth my money. It is rumored that the full release of the game later in 2026 will make the game free-to-play, so you could wait until then as well. Whether you want to pick it up now or wait until the full release, I hope you thoroughly enjoy this awesome game!
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Matt
New video game, movie, or TV show? Matt probably has it on his radar, and he might even be in the middle of reviewing it. This digital entertainment enjoying dude is a Content Writer during work hours, then plays games, watches movies, binges shows, and writes about all of it in his free time.