Platform: PC (version reviewed)
Genre: Action RPG with in-depth classes and big-as-heck endgame

Last Epoch is the latest ARPG taking the gaming world by storm. Dubbed as the love child of Diablo and Path of Exile, this game is actually not new to the scene. It only recently came out of Early Access but has been around for some time now. After a very good many hours spent scratching my head, and figuring out the gameplay of Last Epoch, I can genuinely say that is definitely more fun than Diablo 4.

Don’t get me wrong, Diablo 4 was my first ARPG and I adored the blood-splattering messy hell that it was. However, Last Epoch took a shine to me, considering its complexity. It’s been over a week now since it was officially released in its 1.0 state, and I still have no clue what the heck I am doing. But I can tell you, that I am enjoying the heck out of it.

LIKE CLOCKWORK

To put it simply, you’ve got 5 in-depth classes that you get to play around with, a complex and a little daunting crafting system, co-op multiplayer (which is a huge plus for me), a hardcore mode for the veterans, and a neat little auction house. Not to mention, the world is colourful and fantasy-like! I originally started the game with a bad taste in my mouth. I was excited to get to it and eagerly waited for launch day among thousands of others. My partner and I wanted to play together, so it took a couple of days of server fixes and such for us to even begin our journey. However, when the game really began to work, man, what a damn good time.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE TIMEY-WIMEY

Let’s get the bad out of the way first, since, personally for me, there wasn’t all that much to complain about. The storyline and characters were just average and didn’t captivate me. They didn’t stand out-ish or well remembered at all. And then again, most ARPGs don’t really focus heavily on their narratives, except Diablo, but that’s a whole darn franchise, so would be unfair to compare it to. Bless Queen Lilith. I won’t spoil too much of the story. It’s about travelling through time, visiting different ancient and ruined eras to fix the timeline. Humans and the Gods come to a point where they are fighting and somehow you’re the saviour. You time hop and move through eras so quickly, that it’s hard to establish a bond with anything. Enough about that!

BACK TO BASICS

The game has its classic tanky fighter, a rogue, a mage, your favourite necromancer and a ranger with a pet. Veterans will find that Last Epoch is similar to other ARPGs out there, but has its certain uniqueness that makes it stand out from the rest. I messed around on Mage and Paladin, and both were equally fun. At first, I struggled with 5 hotkeys but everything started to make sense when I saw how in-depth ability skill trees for classes and sub-classes are. Every skill has its own unique passive skill tree on top of every skill having its own dedicated passive skill tree.

To be completely honest, I was overwhelmed at just how much there was to the game. But after a couple of hours in, you sort of just click with it. The game itself also explains everything pretty well. It provides you with enough information for you to play around with your builds. That’s what makes Last Epoch stand out. It highly encourages creative building and for veterans, to spend many hours tinkering with everything.

Personally, I went with some crazy AoE builds! At first, I tried out the Flame Reave Spellblade on my mage, which uses a melee attack that will unleash rings of fire. Yes, it looks as cool as it sounds. It has so much offensive as well as defensive capabilities.  I also got to play around and experiment with a Glacier Sorcerer build. It was tough to keep my mana up, but for me, all I could think of was “WHOAH MORE DPS”, all around me dead.

It just felt so pretty darn cool that I could experiment with a bunch of different things, and it wasn’t hard to change around what I wanted to do either. At times, I felt like an overpowered god spinning my way through damage and slaying enemies in seconds, AND THIS IS A GOOD THING. Who doesn’t want to feel like that? It makes you feel super good. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually last forever, and towards end game, you don’t become the biggest God after all. You’ll have to learn to manage your cooldowns and mana, and look at your health.

HOW’S THE ENDGAME?

I’ve only recently reached level cap, but levelling honestly was a grind. Luckily, dungeons make the grind all worth it to me. They are pretty unique and make things pretty interactive, rather than just spamming your abilities and going through them, each dungeon has a unique modifier to it. One of my favourites is the Temporal Sanctum. This makes it so you have access to two different eras and some parts open up different closed areas. You do however get only one try to go through a dungeon which can be extremely punishing. There is also Arena and Monolith of Fate for end-game content. The Arena is where you’ll take on countless swarms of enemies, the difficulty rises as you complete each wave.

Now where my brain got even more befuddled was the crafting and looting system. In Last Epoch, each item comes with a certain number of affixes. What happens is you can remove them at the forge, and add other affixes that will better suit your playstyle. Rarer items will of course allow you to add a higher amount of affinity to your desired items. To be quite frank, there are a shit ton of loot drops that I never really sifted through. There really are just too many drops. That is all of course countered by loot filters, but as a new player, how are we supposed to know what’s good to keep or forge. It’s daunting and can be overwhelming at times.

However, it’s a great way for people to individualize their items; something that I’ve wanted in this genre of games in a while.

TRADING PLACES

Another unique thing about Last Epoch is its trading system. To trade with someone else, you will need to join the Merchant’s Guild item faction or gather resonance. The Guilds is one of the latest feature to come with Last Epoch’s release. There are two, the Merchant’s which has a little hub where players can sell or buy items from other players. This includes trading from player-to-player of course! The other guild is called the Circle of Fortune. Unlike the Merchant’s Guild, this one gives you the chance to earn higher-quality loot easier, BUT you can’t trade. You’ll have to grind some reputation and unlock different ways to trade which is pretty cool. Not only that, you can swap freely between each faction to reap its benefits, and you won’t lose any progress on your rank nor reputation.

I feel like there is still so much for me to do, even though I’ve level capped, and so much to learn. It’s honestly been a great experience so far for someone who is still new to the ARPG genre. Last Epoch strikes a pretty good balance for beginners, and doesn’t just cater to the veterans of the genre. It might just be a honeymoon phase for now as the game is still pretty new, but I’m excited to see its growth.

The dev team has expressed genuine passion, making sure that Last Epoch gets continuous updates and upgrades in the future. Let’s just say that with all that’s on tap here and experienced for 20+ hours, I’ll be sticking around for this timesink.

PROS

• Combat is satisfying.
• Tons of replayability.
• All classes are fun and unique.
• A big amount of build customization.
• Very accessible to beginners.

CONS

• Mediocre story & audio work.

FINAL SCORE: 80/100