Path of Exile Mobile Has Been Announced

I know a lotta you guys watching are also PC gamers. Most of you likely came on over from the main MMOByte channel. That means the vast majority of you have no doubt played, or at the very least tried Path of Exile, right?
How could you not have. It’s one of the better multiplayer isometric Action RPGs on PC, with some people going as far as referring to it as an MMORPG entirely due to its large multiplayer capabilities.
If you weren’t aware already, then ExileCon was held a few days ago – a convention all about Path of Exile. Yes, Path of Exile is really that large of a game that they actually get their very own dedicated convention.
At ExileCon, they announced two things: Path of Exile 2, a brand new Path of Exile game coming out for PC, and Path of Exile Mobile, a mobile port of the main Path of Exile game.
If you follow Blizzard or at the very least, Overwatch, then you’d be aware that recently they announced Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 is going to be a direct sequel to the game allowing players to retain all of the content they’ve unlocked and achieved over the course of the years leading up to this release.
But they’re also going to be charging you the price of an entirely new game.
Although Path of Exile 2 is free to play, the game will be releasing its sequel much in the same way: A brand new seven-act storyline that will be playable alongside Path of Exile – but.. as Path of Exile 2.

Now, not much in the way of Path of Exile Mobile has been revealed thus far, with the exception of a few little tidbits and a small trailer, but what we do know is that they’re currently using an experimental version of the Atlas of Worlds system.
Well, that and the fact that Grinding Gear Games have acknowledged that a lot of mobile games are heavily pay to win.
Thus in an attempt to quell potential player concern, they made certain to repeatedly reiterate that the game, once launched onto mobile devices will not only be completely free of pay to win elements, but also be developed in-house.
This may or may not be a jab at Blizzard who announced a little while back that Diablo Immortal would be developed by a Chinese company and in doing so showed their flippant disregard of their players.
This means no microtransactions – as they claim their goal is to bring only the core Path of Exile game to mobile devices, planning on making it an unfiltered, direct port.

So with this in mind, I’m pretty excited. I’ve played a lotta mobile games recently, as I have to for this channel, but a recurring theme in pretty much every single one is microtransactions, auto-play and pay to win.
While there are a few here and there that aren’t nearly as bad as the others, it’s still a very prevalent occurrence.
Thus, hearing that Grinding Gear Games are actively working on a mobile game in spite of this – knowing full well of the trend that mobile games have.. and their promise to avoid releasing anything that they refer to as “evil garbage” gives me some hope.
“Some” hope being the keyword here. See, both Netease, the developers of Diablo Immortal and Tencent are two of the largest, most pay to win Chinese gaming companies in.. like, ever.
That’s fine, except for the fact that Tencent is actually a large shareholder in Grinding Gear Games. While they’ve remained rather silent for the most part, I can’t help but wonder what, if any, influence they’re going to have over the release of the game.
Thankfully, as I mentioned, the game is being developed in-house, by the very same team that worked on Path of Exile and is also working on Path of Exile 2.
The team specifically mentioned that the game is essentially “the original game tailored for smartphone screens and smaller gaming sessions in mind.”
So I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. The game will, after all, be completely free to play. Worst case scenario, I lose faith in Grinding Gear Games and delete the game from my phone.

But for the most part I’m excited. I love Path of Exile. I haven’t played it extensively, mainly because I don’t have much time to play games in my spare time when not recording for the channel anymore, but I wish I had more opportunities to.
From what I played, it’s an amazingly detailed game with a lot of customization, a lot of deep, rich story and gameplay – something I believe is missing from most MMOs and mobile games. Especially cheap cash-grabs.
Even though I’m excited, I’ll still temper my expectations as this is still going to be a mobile port and subsequently there are things that are going to have to be.. tailored to fit mobile devices and the mobile market.
A release date for neither Path of Exile 2 nor Path of Exile Mobile have been given thus far, but I’ll be awaiting additional information in anticipation of getting into beta tests of both.