Diablo 4 established itself as the new leading title in the hack’n’slay genre with huge success last year. However, there are now 2 contenders vying for the throne: Last Epoch and Path of Exile 2. MyMMO ARPG expert Benedict Grothaus explains why players will experience the best year since the early 2000s in 2024.
Do you remember back in the day when all the great games came out? Shortly after the groundbreaking success of Diablo, Diablo 2, Sacred, Dungeon Siege, and later Divine Divinity, Titan Quest, and Torchlight were released. All wonderful titles that provided countless hours of fun. And then? Suddenly nothing.
Before Diablo 4, there was quite a drought in the ARPG sector, at least regarding classic isometric hack’n’slays in the style of Diablo. The reason for this might be that new technologies became more popular. There was more 3D, and the ARPG genre shifted towards games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter.
Only a few games managed to hold their ground. Diablo 3 and Path of Exile dominated the market for years. Only Wolcen was somewhat of a major outlier, which however faded quite quickly. Most hack’n’slays never made a significant impact.
Now it’s 2024, and within not even 3 months, we already have the best announcements that a fan of Diablo and the like could wish for. This year is already excellent and will only get better.
Last Epoch is currently the hero of the hour. Here’s the trailer:
3 strong games worth your time for every ARPG fan
This year, 3 new promising hack’n’slays are releasing, receiving new expansions, or have already launched. You’ll have so much to play throughout the year like never before:
Path of Exile 2 is currently the big hope for many fans. The predecessor is regarded as THE competitor to Diablo, although considerably too difficult for most casual players. Part 2 is just as dark as Diablo according to early playtests, but not as complex as Part 1. A specific release is still pending, but you can already play the beta in July 2024.
Last Epoch has already been released and is currently dominating the genre on Steam. Hundreds of thousands are playing the new ARPG and are thrilled. For many, Last Epoch is the perfect middle ground between the too complex Path of Exile and the too easy Diablo 4. It has now released in version 1.0 and promises patches and changes in the near future to get even better. There are even already plans to become the best game in the genre.
The “big player” Diablo 4 is currently going through Season 3 and has been refining improvements since its release. In 2024, the first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, is finally on the way with new areas, new skills, and a new class. Despite all the criticism, Diablo is still the king of the genre with millions of players, who traditionally flood the servers especially during new seasons and expansions.
I was able to speak live with the heads about the future of Diablo 4 at BlizzCon:
Consistently good content, if everything goes right
What makes 2024 so special is that Path of Exile, Last Epoch, and Diablo 4 will be competing for players. Unlike 20 years ago, these games won’t just be sold and perhaps supplemented with expansions later.
All 3 titles are service games that want to function over the years and provide you with new content to keep you engaged. Typically, that’s about 3 months per season plus some events or patches in between.
In this case, you can almost only win:
- In the best case, there is a sort of rotation where seasons only overlap to a limited extent, and you can spend a month each on the latest content before the next game calls.
- In the worst case, two of the three games are so dull that you have a third to switch to until the competition catches up.
Of course, it can happen that the 3 games will cause so much mutual damage that in the end nothing good will come out for players. However, I find that highly unlikely. Path of Exile and Diablo have previously shown that they can learn a lot from each other and continuously improve. With Last Epoch, there is now even more incentive for that.
Unlike what discussions on Reddit and similar platforms might suggest, the genre doesn’t really need a single king. With the 3 titles, there is so much diverse content available that you can always play exactly what you feel like. It couldn’t get much better than this. But the year still has more to offer: New MMOs and multiplayer games in 2024: The big release list
