Path of Exile 2’s Gamescom demo let me build a terrifying skeleton army

8.23.2024
By Laura Kate Dale, Contributor
As someone who loved the original Path of Exile but found the initial experience a bit of a struggle due to its steep learning curve, I was relieved to see that the Gamescom demo for Path of Exile 2 featured a decent tutorial. It told me that developer Grinding Gear Games has listened to fan feedback and understands that obfuscation and mechanical clutter are not the same as difficulty. For this sequel, they are building on the strengths of the original by cleaning up that initial player experience without sacrificing the challenge that it's well-known for.

I played half an hour of Path of Exile 2 at Gamescom, in a demo that seemingly started at the beginning of the game. I selected the witch as my starting class and jumped right into the monstrous chaos. In terms of early playstyle, I really like the first few tools I was able to pick up for the witch. While her primary basic attack fired a purple energy bolt at enemies, I quickly found a staff which allowed me to automatically summon a pair of skeleton warriors to act as my guards, respawning if defeated after a short cooldown.

This was followed by a spell which allowed me to summon sharp spike-like bones up from the ground in an area-of-effect pattern, turning any enemies killed by the attack into skeletal scorpions which would fight by my side for a short time before crumbling back into dust. I spent most of the demo using my basic attack to weaken enemies, then spamming two or three bone spike attacks at a weakened enemy group to turn five or six enemies into loyal skorpion skeletons at once, then sprinting to my next encounter before they vanished. I have no idea how effective a strategy this was, but it sure was fun rolling around with an undead fanclub by my side after 10 minutes of playing.
Path Of Exile 2 S Gamescom Demo Let Me Build A Terrifying Skeleton Army Boss
In terms of quality-of-life changes, it’s not just the improved tutorialization that stood out as a significant boon. You can now equip gems independently of armor, meaning that you don’t have to screw up your build in the heat of the moment if you want to try out some new armor you found mid-mission. This, alongside things like portals appearing after completing quests to allow easy fast travel back to the quest-giver, really helped give a sense that the studio thought about how to make the Path of Exile experience just that little bit smoother.

The other standout moment of the demo was a really impressive boss fight with The Devourer, a gigantic worm-like enemy that dove in and out of the ground, spitting poison or summoning small insectoid enemies if I failed to attack the head fast enough after it surfaced. The more-dynamic nature of avoiding boss attacks and attacking the weak point promptly felt like a real step-up in complexity from the first game, and the inclusion of small minions allowed me to keep hammering away with my scorpion skeleton attack plan—clearly the best way to play this game.

Overall, Path of Exile 2 feels like a polished-up Path of Exile that learned some lessons about quality-of-life improvements and added new dynamic bosses that will really impress long-time players. It also has a spell that makes skeleton scorpions, which is the best spell a game could have. That sounds like a good time to me.

Wishlist Path of Exile 2 on the Epic Games Store now.