ExileCon 2019: Path of Exile surprises me

[Bale]

When Path of Exile debuted at ExileCon 2019, to be honest, it was thanks to the amazing revelation of Diablo's immortality a year ago, which was a joke. But when the mobile user interface first appeared in a video at the Aotea Center in Auckland, New Zealand, I knew that was true. It's also thankful that Chris Wilson and his team at Grinding Gear Games are also ready for players to check out and provide feedback at ExileCon that weekend. So how does the "Path of Exile" experience translate into mobile devices?

Today, so many games are making this mobility leap. We have seen Black Desert Mobile in recent months, and even EVE Online is taking action in EVE Echoes. But Path of Exile may be one of the few games that provides a great mobile experience. It is game loop is not as overly complicated as EVE Online, and the mechanism itself is carefully designed for the mobile experience.

Early on, it looks like Path, although the visual effect is worse than the PC version. The texture does appear on the phone's small screen (my play is on the iPhone 11), giving the world around the character the required fine detail on the smaller screen. Initially, you can choose between a predator, a witch, or a ranger, and like the Path of Exile 2 demo in the showroom, I decided to check with the predator how it felt when moving.

The motion is mapped to a virtual fingertip on the left side of the screen, and thankfully the fingertip moves freely, which means that if the grip is slightly shifted, there is no need to readjust for control-the fingertip will recognize this point and Move with you. On the move, Mobile feels like any other Path of Exile game, destroying enemies along the way and grabbing the POE Currency and loot that the enemy has dropped in the process. Rinse and repeat. And Mobile feels like a proper Path experience.

However, one of the main problems I encountered was that the response speed of some UI elements was not ideal, especially the health and magic bottles. This was downgraded to the menu in the middle on the right side of the screen, and I have been struggling, especially when the battle is fierce, to fully open this menu and select the appropriate vial I need. Usually, it doesn't even open the pull-out menu, it only consumes all the flasks there.

The list screen is reduced a bit-there is no more space in your list than the corresponding place on the PC, and I'm not sure if this is just a technical limitation on the mobile site or just the on-screen user interface, but it does have limitations. In all games related to collecting loot, it is a bit awkward not to get as many loots as possible.

However, in most cases, movement is the traditional path. You'll get POE Orbs, although you don't need to throw them into weapons and armor, you put them in the skill screen to give the exiles the skills they need to deal with the next round of enemies. A socket system is also provided, enabling you to enhance your role and make it more powerful by supporting POE Exalted Orb.

Although the launch date of Mobile has not been announced, I found myself struggling to try again in the mobile version. It's funny, and honestly, when Grinding Gear Games released another test, I couldn't wait to try again, mainly because I couldn't wait to know where it came from. If I had so much fun in the first stage, then I can only imagine how my experience would be once it was improved and iterated based on ExileCon's feedback.