Overview of Recent Controversies in Path of Exile 2
- Recent player reviews for Path of Exile 2 on Steam have plummeted to a “Mostly Negative”rating.
- The backlash has largely stemmed from the Dawn of the Hunt update, deemed excessively harsh by many players.
- In response, developer Grinding Gear Games (GGG) has announced emergency changes set to be implemented on April 11.
The latest update for Path of Exile 2 has caused a significant downturn in user sentiment, with Steam reviews now classified as “Mostly Negative.”This shift in community sentiment follows the release of the Dawn of the Hunt update, which introduced a variety of new features but also sparked dissatisfaction among players.
Launched on April 4, the Dawn of the Hunt patch raised the game’s version number to 0.2.0. It introduced a new Huntress Class, five Ascendancy Classes, 25 skills, and over 100 Support Gems among various gameplay enhancements. Despite these additions, several aspects of this update have elicited strong criticisms from the community, leading many to voice their concerns over its difficulty and overall changes.
The extent of player dissatisfaction was stark: by April 10, nearly 12,000 reviews had contributed to the game’s current rating. Although Path of Exile 2 still maintains a “Mostly Positive”lifetime review status, recent feedback has dropped its overall player recommendation down to 73.13%, only slightly above the “Mixed”classification. Notably, on April 7 alone, the game saw an influx of over 2,300 negative reviews, highlighting the intensity of the backlash, which appeared to stabilize in subsequent days, possibly preserving its overall lifetime rating for now.
Upcoming Update to Address Player Concerns
As the community expressed their frustrations surrounding Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt, Grinding Gear Games has pledged to respond proactively. An update featuring key adjustments is set to arrive on April 11, between 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT / 10 PM CET as part of version 0.2.0e.
This forthcoming patch aims to alleviate some of the overwhelming challenges players face. Key changes will include reducing the speed of certain monsters to temper the relentless onslaught players currently contend with. Additionally, several bosses, like Uxmal and Viper Napuatzi, will see their difficulty lessened. Another critical adjustment involves the minion revive timers, which will be modified to decrease the penalties after each minion’s death, preventing situations where all minions are wiped out but the cooldown persists at an unmanageable 7.5 seconds.
Review-Bombing Focused Primarily on Steam
Interestingly, the review-bombing phenomenon appears to be isolated to the Steam platform. While the Xbox version holds just 3.4 stars on the Microsoft Store, the PlayStation edition enjoys a more favorable score of 4.25 stars on the PS Store as of April 10, suggesting a discrepancy in player experiences across platforms.