Blizzard’s Diablo series is what most people think of when they hear the term ARPG, but Path of Exile is without a doubt the closest runner-up. Itself directly and explicitly inspired by Diablo 2, Grinding Gear Games’ free-to-play ARPG has an extremely dedicated and sizable player base all its own, and it’s not hard to find genre enthusiasts who consider it their favorite for all sorts of reasons. The example we’re here to talk about is Joe Ziegler, the game director best known for leading Riot’s competitive shooter Valorant and later Bungie‘s extraction shooter Marathon, who says he has a staggering 3,437 logged in Path of Exile because of the unparalleled depth of buildcrafting it offers.
“ARPGs to me are [about the] buildcrafting and the cleverness of putting things together,” Ziegler tells PC Gamer. “And I think Path of Exile is the most freeform version of that. The level of experimentation you can get in that game is so wide in terms of thinking about how you can make builds.
I play a variety of builds. I have a fondness for playing Totem builds, and then second to that is, when I’m feeling really lazy, I like one-button builds, like Whirlwind builds … that’s the fun part of Path of Exile, to be honest, is that it’s just such a Rube Goldberg machine of effects and things that you can make, and you’re just trying to figure out how to deal the most damage and kill things the fastest.”
You don’t have to read a whole lot of my work to know I’m a lifelong Diablo nerd, and while I’ve tried so, so many times to get into Path of Exile, I always find myself lumbering back to Sanctuary. I don’t know if it’s just the nostalgia that’s baked into my bones from 30 years of familiarity—it’s probably that—but frankly, it’s silly of me to even think I have the time for another ARPG obsession. Ziegler, meanwhile, can’t move past the original Path of Exile even with glowing reviews for Path of Exile 2 Early Access.
“I think I’ve changed my expectation around ARPGs because of Path of Exile,” he says. “It’s funny because I’ve played Path of Exile 2, and it’s a little bit more limiting, and it totally makes sense because it’s built around more of an action environment. But I definitely feel like Path of Exile 1 was more meant for me.”
The reason I’ve been explaining my own ARPG history is basically to say there are a million different reasons people play these types of games, and they can be extremely specific to each player. For me, I still play the original Diablo and Diablo 2 even more than Diablo 4 because they’re extremely comforting worlds for me, and the simplicity makes them great for turning off my brain and idly playing while listening to my favorite podcasts.
When I was a kid, I played Diablo almost exclusively for PvP, but now it’s just about returning to a familiar place, soaking in the immaculate vibes, and giving myself something to do when I don’t feel like thinking. For those reasons, the complexity and focus on build theory in Path of Exile actually makes me a little less interested in investing the time in another massive game I don’t have time for. To each, as they say, their own.
Path of Exile co-creator is “tentatively hopeful” Diablo 5 will stick the landing
