At Path of Exile (1), things are currently worse than they have been in 9 years. The director wanted to make amends. However, the player numbers tell a different story.
Which promise was broken? The predecessor of the popular Path of Exile 2 led the developers at Grinding Gear Games to success. With the development of Part 2, a standalone game was to be created that has its own focus and community. The development of Path of Exile was not supposed to stop in the meantime.
But that’s exactly what happened recently when Director Jonathan Rogers pulled the experienced developers of PoE to accelerate the development of the second part. In doing so, he broke a promise for which he later publicly apologized.
As compensation, the developers launched the event league “Legacy of Phrecia”, allowing players to experience discarded ideas from the developers. However, the event ended on April 23 after an extension. It was replaced by smaller events on private servers. The response from gamers to the downturn is now reflected in the player numbers.
This season is currently running in the successor:
Empty servers at Path of Exile
What do the player numbers look like? Path of Exile currently reaches a peak of only 8,720 concurrent players on weekends, a declining trend (via SteamDB). Such low player numbers were last recorded for the ARPG in August 2016, about 9 years ago. For comparison: nearly 230,000 gamers played during the last league launch of Path of Exile.
The reason so few fans are currently playing Path of Exile can be answered by looking at the Reddit forum of the game. Users there explain that they have lost their interest in the game due to a lack of content. Some even talk on Reddit about how their addiction to Path of Exile has come to an end.
What does the future hold? The developers have already announced that the next league for Path of Exile is set to start in June (via PathofExile.com). However, it is still unknown what content fans can expect. A new league usually brings its own mechanics that change the game. There will also be balance changes and improvements to various aspects of the game. Players can also expect new items and abilities.
Whether the developers can meet the targeted start date in June or if there will be a delay is still unclear. The last confirmation of the league’s start in June was at the end of April. While fans of Path of Exile await a new league, a player was disappointed not once but twice after a long wait: Player spends 147 € on Path of Exile 2 and gets disappointed twice
