Summary
- Path of Exile 2 has seen a decrease in players due to issues like respec costs and lack of rewards.
- Path of Exile’s player count has spiked, with more players on the original game than the sequel at times.
- A new event in Path of Exile, the Legacy of Phrecia, may be drawing players back and impacting the sequel’s player base.
Path of Exile 2’s start has been a fairly tumultuous one. The game’s launch was so big, it broke SteamDB, but problems have plagued the game since, with the cost of respecs, lack of rewards, and its underwhelming and repetitive endgame all coming under fire.
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I Love Path Of Exile 2’s Current Difficulty, But It Still Needs Some Tweaking
As fun as the current version of Path Of Exile II is, it still has some frustrations that need to be addressed.
It’s the issues that have seen the game hemorrhage players, with its average player count of over 300,000 in December dropping to just over 100,000. It seems, for now at least, a big portion of those players have hopped back onto the original Path of Exile.
Path of Exile’s Player Count Spikes As Sequel’s Drops Drastically
According to SteamDB, at the time of writing, 53,513 players were playing Path of Exile 2, and 44,042 were playing the original title, a difference of a little over 9,000. Within the last 24 hours, Path of Exile’s peak player count actually exceeded that of Path of Exile 2, with the original hitting 91,948 players and the follow-up 87,147.
It’s a far cry from how things were last month. In January, Path of Exile 2 hit a peak player count of 353,966. Path of Exile barely managed 13,000. This means that Path of Exile 2’s peak has dropped by a whopping 75 percent in the past month, while Path of Exile’s peak has increased by over 600.
Path of Exile 2’s peak has dropped by a whopping 75 percent in the past month, while Path of Exile’s peak has increased by over 600.
While player unhappiness can certainly be attributed to part of PoE 2’s downfall, a major new event in PoE is likely to have been a big draw for players.
The Legacy of Phrecia event has introduced a new class ascendancy, which players speculate is a trial ahead of a Path of Exile 2 release, something developers Grinding Gear Games have denied, plus a new league mechanic that runs for around a month.
It’s unclear whether Path of Exile will continue to siphon players away from the recently released sequel, but this trend has to be a concern to the series’ creators.
- Released
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December 1, 2024
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Nudity, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Grinding Gear Games
- Publisher(s)
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Grinding Gear Games