On the evening of April 4, the new season “Dawn of the Hunt” for Path of Exile 2 began. Beforehand, many players had a lot of anticipation for the launch, but it didn’t go as desired. In addition to technical problems, the updates also faced criticism. The developers are mitigating the damage with a total of 6 hotfixes.
How did the launch of “Dawn of the Hunt” go? “Dawn of the Hunt” was supposed to be the first major expansion for Path of Exile 2 that would excite many players again while bringing long-awaited updates to the ARPG. However, many experienced technical issues at the start of the new season of PoE2.
Crashes, sudden FPS drops, and lags caused frustration right at the start at 9 PM German time. While the developers quickly provided workarounds and eventually released a hotfix to resolve the issue, the first gaming hours of the new season were marked by crashes and problems for many.
For those who were able to play without many crashes, the experience was not much better, as they commented.
Here you can watch the trailer for the new season of Path of Exile 2:
“I’d rather go to work than play this game”
How did it go in the game? The players who could play the ARPG without major technical issues were not exactly more satisfied. The developers from Grinding Gear Games had already announced beforehand that they would perform a complete rebalance. Every skill in the game was supposed to receive new, changed values.
While some sadly had to say goodbye to their OP builds, other players were initially excited about the new meta. However, in the game itself, the ARPG felt little entertaining for many after the update. Cooldowns, damage values, and weapons seemed weak.
The most important element in the game, the combat, just doesn’t feel good for many anymore. Instead of nerfs to the overpowered abilities and a buff to the weaker skills, the overall damage level was flattened.
Complaints about the update are piling up in the community. User FreshmeatOW explains in a thread on Reddit: “I wanted to take a day or two off to play this game. But I canceled my vacation that I had planned. I’d rather go to work than play this game.”
User shnurr214 directly addresses the bosses Mark Roberts and Jonathan Rogers on Reddit: “Mark and Jonathan, you really messed it up. I’m not sure what you expect the average player experience to be, but this is such an incredibly unenjoyable experience. […] I have played ARPG games all my life; this is honestly a slower game than Diablo 1 in its current form.”
Even on Steam, Path of Exile 2 dropped from its 80% positive rating to 72% positive in recent reviews. Just looking at April 5 (as of 11:30 AM), only about 30% of the reviews there are positive. On the release day on Steam, things were better; Path of Exile 2 managed to secure 600 positive reviews directly with the release, while only 200 were negative.
How did it go with the new class? The new Hunter class, which many had returned for, also feels too weak. In a clip on Twitch, streamer ds_lily judges her experience with the new class: “This is the worst leveling experience in an ARPG I’ve ever had.”
Others are also complaining on Reddit about the new Hunter. User bedhanger explains: “It turns out that all the spears in the game are not to scale. They are actually toothpicks,” referring to the low damage of the attacks that can be seen in the streamer’s clip. Player EmeHera adds below: “You might as well call them fishing rods.”
The Developers React
What are the developers doing in the meantime? Since the release of the new season, the development team has been continuously working on the issues. While initially a temporary solution for the technical problems was posted, the developers have now released 6 hotfixes by April 5, 2025 (as of 11:30 AM) that address the problems. Among other things, the new expansion class of the Smith has been repaired, which you can see in our cover image.
Although the skills have not yet been boosted, the developers have weakened the hit points of almost all enemies in the game. This will make the characters feel stronger again. It can be assumed that more patches will come to fix current issues. You can find an overview of all hotfixes on PathofExile.com.
“Dawn of the Hunt” is the first major milestone in the development of Path of Exile 2. The ARPG was actually supposed to leave early access within 12 months. The full release is therefore still due this year. MeinMMO asked the head how things are going: Head of Path of Exile 2 explains how secure the full release in 2025 is
