After the trouble surrounding the release of the latest seasons in Path of Exile 2 and Last Epoch, the smaller ARPG has drawn the short straw, but this could ultimately have a positive outcome.
What led to the release postponement? Already at the end of February, Last Epoch announced its new Season 2 for April 2, 2025. This is intended to restore the game to its former glory and bring back as many of the previously over 260,000 players (via SteamDB) as possible. In recent weeks, only about 1% of them logged in.
Good two weeks after Last Epoch, Path of Exile 2 set its own Season 2 for April 4, just 2 days after Last Epoch’s launch. A terrible timing for the general player base of the genre, many of whom would like to play both games.
Also Diablo 4 is bringing its new Season 8 live during this period. It starts on April 29, 2025, more than a month after the original release dates of PoE2 and LE.
As the smallest ARPG in the group, the developers of Last Epoch recently chose to postpone their season to April 17, 2025. They made it clear that they were doing this to avoid splitting the player base between themselves and Path of Exile 2. However, this action has also won them some fans.
Here you can see what to expect in the next season of Last Epoch:
Community supports Last Epoch
How are players reacting? After players were already somewhat negatively inclined towards the ARPG due to various decisions by the developers of Path of Exile, the release date of the “Dawn of the Hunt” update for PoE2 caused upset in the community. Now, with Last Epoch announcing its retreat and postponement, some fans have had enough.
They do not want to play the new season of Path of Exile 2 in favor of Last Epoch and find the action unacceptable. Reddit user Maesterbotten writes: “Maybe a bit childish of me, but this makes me really less interested in the PoE2 content. The original plan was 2–3 weeks of LE and then PoE 2. But now I feel like I’ll just wait until the 17th instead[…]”.
Also on Reddit, user PM_ME_CUTE_HOOTERS writes: “I respect that they just said it instead of claiming the season needs more polishing. Just this step has changed me from ‘I’ll play when I have time’ to ‘I will make time for this’.”
In the Reddit community, there is generally a lot of praise and positive words directed at the developers of Last Epoch. Overall, the postponement is considered the right decision, even though many players who did not plan to play PoE2 show sadness:
- Phixionion via Reddit: “That’s unfortunate, but a smart decision. […]”
- Rex8472 via Reddit: “Yes, it’s sad, but probably the best for the health of the game.”
- Lichii via Reddit: “Completely understandable. Personally, I don’t play PoE, so I wasn’t affected by the release dates being so close together, but I understand that a large part of the community was affected. […]”
However, there are also other players in the community who believe that a release two weeks after Path of Exile 2 will not be sufficient because a large part of the players will not have finished the new season yet. Two weeks after Last Epoch, Diablo 4 will also launch, presenting another problem for Last Epoch.
Whether the developers will achieve the desired figures with the new release date and the gained players remains to be seen. However, the trouble regarding the release of the seasons seems to be settled for now due to the postponement. If you still want to check out Path of Exile 2, we’ll reveal here what you can expect from the new season: Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.2.0: All information about Dawn of the Hunt, release, and new weapon
