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[cormack12]

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/path-of-exile-2-is-most-likely-coming-in-2022/

During a phone interview about the upcoming endgame expansion for the original Path of Exile, studio head Chris Wilson got to talking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the New Zealand studio.

"I hate to blame COVID for stuff, but that is a big part of it at the moment," Wilson said. "We have had difficulty hiring internationally because the borders to New Zealand are closed, so that has curtailed the exponential growth of our asset creation team a little bit. The progress of development hasn't been as fast as we wanted, and so our goal is to bash as hard as we can during 2021 on Path of Exile 2 stuff and see how much headway we make. Trying to get as much done as possible, and that'll give us a better idea of a good release date we can estimate, which should be towards the end of the year."

When asked for clarification about whether Path of Exile 2 would probably launch sometime in 2022, Wilson said, "Yeah, I think that's accurate." He also mentioned that working from home during lockdowns had slowed production on the past few major updates. Nothing catastrophic, but it was one factor in the upcoming expansion being delayed slightly.

 

[FranXico]

Warframe has shown that you can keep people engagedm and even make deep changes in the game mechanics without pushing out sequels. I'm always skeptical of this kind of F2P/GaaS games that push out sequels, as it seems like a pointless risk.

 

[geary]

PoE 2 is not a new game, it's basically a huge expansion and rework of curent game.

Meanwhile they'll release on 15th an expansion and a new league...

 

[Tomeru]

Warframe has shown that you can keep people engagedm and even make deep changes in the game mechanics without pushing out sequels. I'm always skeptical of this kind of F2P/GaaS games that push out sequels, as it seems like a pointless risk.

You don't know what you're talking about do you? Putting PoE and "this kind of F2P/Gaas games" in the same pot tells me you don't. No sirree, nope.

 

[perkelson]

PoE 2 is not a new game, it's basically a huge expansion and rework of curent game.

Yes it is huge rework of POE but also comes with Path of Exile 2 campaign and shares endgame.
So basically 2 games with one launcher who share end game.

 

[Bolivar687]

Hopefully beta this year?

 

[Rikkori]

Luckily they're pushing the rendering improvements out as they're done, so engine improvements don't wait for the content creation side to finish. That way we can enjoy a prettier & better performing game earlier. I love the way GGG does it!

 

[harmny]

diablo 4 may launch in 2022 too

 

[Cyberpunkd]

diablo 4 may launch in 2022 too

That is extremely unlikely, Covid or not. Their Dev Diary updates make it sound they are still prototyping and deciding on features.

I just checked and Diablo 3 Beta started in September 2011 with full game releasing May 2012. If people are lucky they will get Beta invites at Blizzcon 2022.

You also have this (taken from https://www.techradar.com/news/diablo-4-news-release-date-trailers-rumors):

Bad news here: Diablo 4 probably won't be released anytime soon. At a Blizzcon 2019 deep dive on the game, the game's director said that he doesn't expect the game to be finished anytime soon, "even by Blizzard's standards of soon."

 

[diffusionx]

diablo 4 may launch in 2022 too

I wouldn't be worried about that if I was the PoE devs

 

[LisaMariaMartin]

I wouldn't be worried about that if I was the PoE devs

Why not? I have over 1000h racked up in POE but Diablo 4 looks good based on the developer updates so far. Regardless of the quality, Diablo 4 is a massive threat to POE simply based on it's popularity with casual gamers.

 

[diffusionx]

Why not? I have over 1000h racked up in POE but Diablo 4 looks good based on the developer updates so far. Regardless of the quality, Diablo 4 is a massive threat to POE simply based on it's popularity with casual gamers.

Part of the reason PoE got an opening to find an audience was because Diablo 3 was such a bag of shit at launch, and even though it became competent eventually, it does not offer anything close to the depth and variety that people wanted. Personally speaking I have no faith in Blizzard at all to make a good game, they are not what they used to be. This studio just needs to keep their head down and working hard and they'll be fine, they are IMO much more capable of delivering than Blizzard.

 

[harmny]

Part of the reason PoE got an opening to find an audience was because Diablo 3 was such a bag of shit at launch, personally speaking I have no faith in Blizzard at all to make a good game, they are not what they used to be.

if shadowlands sold 4 million copies on day 1 diablo 4 is going to destroy sales charts.
however if i was the PoE devs i would be more worried about my chinese bosses than blizzard.

 

[perkelson]

That is extremely unlikely, Covid or not. Their Dev Diary updates make it sound they are still prototyping and deciding on features.

I just checked and Diablo 3 Beta started in September 2011 with full game releasing May 2012. If people are lucky they will get Beta invites at Blizzcon 2022.

More like 2024 or 2025. Diablo 3 was released years after first announcement and back then. They are still prototyping various aspects of gameplay. They have vertical slice people played but everything there is basically WIP.

 

[Holammer]

Let's give this thread a little bump. It's not even smelly.

 

[Spukc]

Maybe they will make it less of a clusterfuck..
If you think newcomers will play this game in 2021 you are high as fuck

 

[purvispisgah]

I would be interested if they added controller support. I've always played Diablo-esque games single player, and prefer to do it from the couch.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I've tried Path of Exile a few times over the years. It's impressive as hell, but the "feel" of the game never quite clicked with me.

 

[Tomeru]

Looks amazing. Really amazing. Can't wait.

 

[wArTHEIST]

I would be interested if they added controller support. I've always played Diablo-esque games single player, and prefer to do it from the couch.

They said they will add controller support, it doesn't seem to be high up on their priority list tho sadly.

After playing it on my PS4 it's hard to go back to KB+M. It plays amazingly on console (apart from performance issues).

 

[LisaMariaMartin]

Fuck me that last gameplay demo looked incredible. Diablo 4 is gonna have fierce competition.

 

[SinDelta]

Fuck me that last gameplay demo looked incredible. Diablo 4 is gonna have fierce competition.

More competition is a good thing. Actually looking forward to both. PoE 2 looks incredible.

My only hope for PoE 2 (besides a 2021 release) is you can get amazing loot without having to trade with other players, something Grim Dawn manages to do. That was my big issue with 1.

 

[martino]

diablo, poe....i personally found the balance i was looking for with last epoch.

 

[Spukc]

they stated they are fixing the reward system
this is a much needed update an issue for PoE