Path of Exile 2: A New Competitive Game on the Rise

Path of Exile 2 has been a very popular game so far to begin 2025, but why is it seen as a “casino” game by many pro players despite its free-to-play nature?

 

Path of Exile 2 image

📖 Published on: January 24th, 2025

✍️ Updated: January 24th, 2025

⏳ 13 mins read

If you aren’t on the same track as the pro gamers right now, then maybe you may have only caught a whiff of the scent that the Path of Exile 2 has set right now with the way the game has evolved from being an outstanding RPG title into a so-called “gambling” RPG in just a short amount of time. So far, this has become quite a discussion among many players online, leading to various speculations and theories surrounding the game.

What is Path of Exile 2?

Released just last December 2024, Path of Exile 2 was the successor to the 2013 hit ARPG of the same title. Nearly a decade after the first game, fans were met with a promising title that offered a massive improvement in its features, from graphics, gameplay mechanics, portability among various platforms, and many other new changes that made it easy for players to enjoy the hype of the new game that is coming into play.

Developed and published by Grinding Gear Games, it is quite hard not to expect that it would have huge reception. The Path of Exile 2 release date was set back in December 6, 2024, however, it is worth noting that the game was not as complete as it was expected to be. As it turns out, what was released back in December 2024 was the Path of Exile 2 Early Access, which means that there’s still plenty of content to look out for in the game itself.

In comparison to the previous game, POE 2 now dives deeper on the challenging boss fights in the campaign – addressing the talks that it is not as competitive as most Souls-like games such as Dark Souls, Elden Ring, or even Bloodborne, all of which require massive precise timing and positioning to actually beat the said bosses. On top of that, the mechanics of the game has been expanded to a whole new level to further immerse players to the game’s environment.

While the first Path of Exile featured a total of seven character classes, the Path of Exile 2 classes will feature a total of 12 whopping classes. Six of these planned classes; Warrior, Monk, Mercenary, Sorceress, Witch, and Ranger were all featured in the early access of the game, which gives players a taste of the game’s well-developed character customization experience combined with the new skill system composed of 240 active skill gems and 200 support gems.

Is Path of Exile 2 a Gambling Game?

In just more than a month of gameplay experience, the Path of Exile 2 reviews were full of discussions surrounding the topic that the game isn’t in fact an ARPG, but instead a “gambling” RPG to begin with. Well, there are many talks as to how the game was praised for its story, the graphical improvements, and the inclusion of various impressive mechanics – all of which have been a positive look for the game so far.

Over the past few weeks, the case seemed to be quite on the expanding side, with plenty of players talking about how it has either been a good or bad thing for Path of Exile 2’s success so far. Path of Exile 2 is starting to be identified as a successful game despite being also claimed to be quite a gambling one at this point.

PoE expedition gamble image

But it does not matter so far. As of the time of writing, Path of Exile 2 has peaked at 202,435 today, and that's just on Steam, not including all other platforms. If you are not impressed – it had a 578,569 in its all-time peak last month. That is a whopping set of numbers, which says a lot about how the game continues to have a strong retention up to this point.

So is Path of Exile 2 really a gambling game? Let us dive deep into the game’s features.

A Standard ARPG Game

So let’s make this quick. No, Path of Exile 2 is not a gambling game. There’s no money needed from players aside from the actual purchase of the base game itself. It is easy to say that Path of Exile 2 offers you to make use of the gold you have to come up with amazing items – which can help replace massive items that you need upgraded as you progress in your game.

However, if you look at this aspect, items are either purchased in-game, or are dropped by the enemies you take out. It does seem to be natural among many other games such as the decades-old Warcraft III where certain creeps can drop items, and even known titles such as Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and many other games that feature item use also allow item drops and even in-game purchases.

At this point, it is expected that players would play over 50 hours to accumulate the best items possible. However, it is worth noting that the new item system for Path of Exile 2 has introduced massive concerns about the gambling aspect, which has explored a different path for Path of Exile 2 (get the pun?).

Path of Exile 2 early access image

This is a normal discussion for players who are new to Path of Exile as a whole. However, it is worth noting that this so-called “gambling” in Path of Exile 2 has been a major part of many hack-and-slash games for quite some time now, and the Grinding Gear Games title has just taken it to another level, with players noticing the massive difference it had from its predecessor so far.

The “Gambling” Part of POE 2

Have you ever wondered how you can gamble on consoles? Well, since there has been a Path of Exile 2 PS5 release, and the players consider it as a gambling game, one can say that you are indeed gambling on your consoles now. However, it is high time that we got deep into what the fans and players call the gambling aspect in Path of Exile 2, and spoiler alert – it is more normal than you would expect out of this title.

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RNG - Like in Any Other RPG Game

For starters, items in Path of Exile 2 are generated with a random number generator, or RNG – which is also the same process that is applied in playing slot machines. It plays with the probability set for various values that are included in the roll, so whenever you take out an enemy in the game and they drop an item loot, the game rolls a dice as to what quality or class of an item you will get.

Of course, there are also gambling items that players can purchase, such as potion flasks, basic magic items, scrolls, charms, and even belts. However, there are plenty of these items that can be found in-game and players would instead save their gold for different, more expensive items that can be of help in assembling the level-related items.

However, the RNG isn’t that unique to Path of Exile 2. It was already present in the previous iteration, and one can say that there’s just a lot of complaints about how Path of Exile 2 has needed multiple tries to gamble for the perfect item that players have been looking for – and to tell you how it looks at this point, it is not entirely new to begin with.

Remember the games mentioned before? Ghost Recon: Breakpoint? Yeah, there’s an RNG for the weapons that you can get when it comes to opening loot boxes or even killing enemies – with the colors differentiated by the quality level of the said weapon or item. Dark Souls even has a stat called Item Discovery, which rate affects the chance of rare items dropping when players defeat enemies, and let’s not forget that Elden Ring was praised for its balance item randomization as well.

Chasing Perfect Builds

So why is it getting a lot of players hooked? Well, as of the latest Path of Exile 2 Patch notes, there has been a lot of changes in the loot filter, which means that the rarity of loot items that players can differ depending on the stage of the game that they are playing right now. For example, midway through the game, you may spot that the worst drops are hidden from time to time, and waystones are starting to get less attention the further you get into the game.

When you reach the endgame phase of the early access, the crafting essentially becomes pure gambling. For example, finding an item of endgame level base that has some essences on it or if you figure to have it transmuted, augmented or regaled in any way, that’s just fine, but then the next phase of upgrading it with exalted orbs, divine orbs and orbs of corruption, comes harder than you’d expect.

In most ARPG games, we are expected to have the best items at hand, especially if you’ve already maxed out the best level possible. Coming up with the best, perfect Path of Exile 2 builds, however, comes as a frustrating part for many players, as exalting that certain item comes as a challenging experience.

The items needed comes in pure luck, with players needing to gamble a lot of in-game currency just to get a chance at getting the best items that they need to further enhance the weapons or armor in discussion. This will be easier for players who are trading for items, but for players who are grinding on their own – yes, that is indeed a lot of gambling.

What Are the People Saying About POE 2?

Well, there is a lot of Path of Exile 2 news that has been circulating around the internet ever since its release. If you are not impressed, even tech mogul Elon Musk is on the hype of playing the game. The X and SpaceX owner is confirmed to have a high rank not just in Path of Exile, but even in Activision Blizzard’s Diablo, but do you even believe that the billionaire has a lot of time to grind hard for the game?

Well, it is revealed in a conversation with YouTuber NikoWrex, that Musk was indeed a high-ranked players in Path of Exile 2 – by letting other gamers play for him. Considering that he has a tight schedule for Tesla, SpaceX, DOGE, and his social platform, X, it is impossible that he would have managed to play at least 40 hours straight.

Elon Musk playing PoE2 image

Well, there’s still a lot of things to talk about Path of Exile 2, especially when the game is fully released and up and running later in 2025. But for now, the gambling concern has definitely been addressed, which says a lot about how the game is perceived at this point.

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