Path of Exile 2 launched with record-breaking player numbers, but fans are frustrated with its brutal difficulty and slow pacing, calling the game “too hard.”
The highly anticipated Path of Exile 2 Early Access, developed by Grinding Gear Games, launched yesterday, and the numbers were staggering. The day one peak concurrent player count on Steam was 459,263, with Twitch viewership peaking at over 1 million.
However, the launch wasn’t without hiccups. Server stability issues left many players unable to log in for hours, and the game’s official website was also down for quite some time. Despite the technical issues, fans jumped into the sequel, excited to experience its Souls-like gameplay and innovations on the classic ARPG formula.
But once they got in, many players quickly found themselves frustrated. While Path of Exile 2 brings fresh mechanics and an atmospheric vibe, the community is torn over its brutal difficulty and slower pacing.
Social media, subreddit threads, and the official forums are filled with criticism that the game’s early stages are too punishing to enjoy.
Path Of Exile 2 Fans Speak Out About the Brutal Difficulty
One of the most common complaints is the punishing start to the game, especially in Act 1. On the r/pathofexile subreddit, one player shared their frustration: “The game is very well made, but I’m not having fun playing. First, the elephant in the room—this game is hard. I think way too hard at the start. You are slow and weak, and even white mobs hit you for huge chunks of health.”
Others echoed the sentiment, with one player commenting, “Same, I’m not a fan of the slow walk during attacks and being bodyblocked by swarms of normal mobs. Melee feels sluggish, you have to invest on defenses really early compared to PoE 1 since even normal mobs hit hard.”
Another user replied, “I did not feel great after dying 100 times in act one, I felt a bit discouraged. But the good thing is, the hard difficulty is very easy to fix by just adjusting the stats of the mobs.”
Difficulty complaints weren’t limited to subreddit threads either. On the official forums, a player voiced their disappointment after hours of struggling: “Absolutely disappointed. This game is hard, and not in a fun way,” they said. “I’ve been playing PoE for years, and I have thousands of hours in the game. Today I played PoE2 for ~5 hours and rage quit. I failed to kill the Act 1 boss 10 times, I have 22 deaths, and honestly… it’s not fun.”
The steep challenge curve isn’t the only issue. Many fans are taking issue with how slow and unresponsive the gameplay feels compared to the original. As one user put it, “My issue is that everything is so slow. Dark Souls are not particularly fast games but they are way more reactive and responsive than that.”
Another common gripe is how imbalanced the difficulty feels. One Reddit user shared their experience: “It’s too hard, or at least imbalanced enough to make it very difficult for some characters. 42 deaths in A1, hard stuck on the last boss, and getting enough gold to respec 10 points at level 17 (2500 gold) to fix the problem is very slow.”
Path of Exile 2 is clearly aiming to challenge players with its difficulty and methodical pacing, but is it too much too soon? While some are excited by the challenge, others feel the game’s balance needs adjusting to make the experience more enjoyable, especially in the early stages.
What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
