Last Epoch is mere minutes away from release now, after having spent nearly five years in Steam Early Access. It is the debut title of the small team at Eleventh Hour Games, a developer who decided to take on the venerable genre of action RPGs with its first game. Last Epoch is, in no uncertain terms, coming for Diablo 4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (remember that?) and all the other ARPGs currently in the conversation. The latter two have been out for a while, so player sentiment there have pretty much settled.
Path of Exile remains popular with a core group of players who don’t get deterred by its unwieldy skill tree, outdated visuals and core combat that just can’t stack up to any of those other options. While we all wait for Path of Exile 2, the main game in ARPG town right now is Diablo 4. And boy oh boy has Blizzard been doing its damndest to make it undesirable right now, with poorly-thought-out Season 3 mechanics, and a rush of unusually greedy microtransactions and store bundles for a $70 game.
In a way, Last Epoch couldn’t have asked for a more favourable environment to release in. For better or worse, ARPGs feel stagnant right now; with a lot of known quantities chugging along, and barely any excitement on the horizon. I’ve been playing the 1.0 build of Last Epoch, as the game prepares to graduate out of early access and properly introduce itself to players who haven’t kept up with its journey thus far.
About Author
