Last Epoch

I initially bought Last Epoch to bridge myself between the two other big ARPGs. Some context is useful here - I play both Path of Exile 2 and Diablo IV "once per season" usually, play one or two classes and then drop the game and wait for the next season. Well, when I had a taste for an ARPG but was inbetween these two games, LE came to mind. I tried it once before but it didn't click at first. I don't know if the latest update changed something, but I got much deeper into it and there is so much to love. The comparison is inevitable so I will use it here in the review because I feel like people will know PoE2 and D4 already. Last Epoch is definitely less complex than PoE2, but in my opinion more complex and interactive than Diablo IV. It feels less inflated when it comes to numbers which I appreciate. I find Last Epoch slightly easier than PoE, but not as much of a walk in the park as D4. My experience is, if you follow a guide for your build, you will steamroll everything in the game. But you can play without a guide. IMO, in PoE you need a build, in D4 it almost doesn't matter what you do and it will work. What I appreciate the most about Last Epoch is that things are explained. Crafting mechanics, seasonal mechanics, they don't require a degree and hours of research or reading guides, everything is mostly easy to figure out. Sometimes I would appreciate being pointed at things more (crafting mechanic hidden behind a dungeon that I probably would not have done if I didn't read that you need to for the crafting), but once you find something, it is easy to understand and explained in the game itself. I find this rare, especially as games get more complex with new seasons. Things snowball and it not only gets more difficult to catch up, but the mechanics themselves become more complex to outperform the older ones. Other than that, it's just a good ARPG. Less production value, but well playable, fun, for sure. I hope for more content, am looking forward to the classes, and wish they had nicer cosmetics so I can support the game a bit more than buying the Deluxe version twice. I know there was a lot of controversy over paid DLC, but if it was big enough, I probably would not mind paying for a DLC myself. Oh, and despite the lesser production values, I find this game a lot more optimized and running technically well than PoE2. 50 hours of playing so far, by now PoE2 would have shown me the dreaded "endless grinding gears screen" a couple of times already. There are bugs but they are mostly gameplay/systems related, not technical, and the game has run fine for me without any crashes which I'm happy about.