So there I was, feeling like I needed to play something different. I can only do so much Warframe space ninja action at a time before I need something slightly lower paced. I’m at a tedious and frustrating part of my solo Satisfactory game and don’t want to hit burnout while also running a weekly co-op session for some coworkers. What else is on offer? Is it time to go shopping?

I very nearly wound up buying Baldur’s Gate 3 but decided that “try a D&D game again” probably wouldn’t pan out any better than any of the previous few times, such as when I spent a few hours with Solasta. While researching BG3, however, I bumped into mention of something else: A Diablo type game (of which there are, admittedly, quite a few) that isn’t by Blizzard and isn’t a Path of Exile game and isn’t part of the now-cursed Torchlight franchise, nor is it spawned from or closely related to Titan Quest/Grim Dawn. (OK, yes, I’ve clearly tried a few of these over the years. There’s an itch which needs scratching.) After reading a couple of reviews, I decided to use the last of the “gift card” money in my Steam wallet to pick up…

Last Epoch.

The game is positioned as a kind of middle-ground option between the almost arcade-style gaming of modern Diablo installments and the “git gud” marvel of hardcore complexity which is Path of Exile. Both styles are valid, of course, and have their fans, but what if someone split the difference? How would that game turn out? As it happens: Quite nicely, if the developers also take care to craft a slick gameplay experience with just enough narrative flow to keep things ticking along, paired with a good power progression system. Which, so far, they seem to have done.

You start out with not much more than a sword. In short order you start accumulating skills that you can arrange in your small set of key binding slots. Note that by default your abilities are on the letters Q, W, E, and R. (You also get a 5th slot mapped to your right mouse button.) This specific hand configuration kept short-circuiting my brain and triggering my WASD 3D-gaming reflexes to disastrous effect so I remapped them to the number keys 2, 3, 4, and 5. Not 1, because that’s where your health potion lives. I’m not yet aware of a mana potion system. If you run out of mana, just… do something that doesn’t cost mana for a few seconds. Yes, there are good skills that don’t cost mana, which is Last Epoch’s answer to later Diablo installments’ “build-and-spend” system I suppose. I rarely notice being “out” of mana but I’m also only in the second chapter of the game’s story.

Speaking of the health potions, your belt determines how many you can hold. If you’re full up, you can’t pick up more. Period. (If you’re not at full health and you walk over a potion, you pick it up and use it immediately.) I guess that removes the temptation to load up on potions to take back to town and sell off.

The core gameplay loop is mostly what you expect: Run around, defeat monsters, nab the best loot to either wear or sell off (note that the cheapest gear really isn’t worth hauling back at any point), get leveled up, get new skills, lather rinse repeat. I haven’t felt punished by the difficulty, and a modicum of situational awareness paired with remembering to keep moving will take you a fair distance, near as I can tell. Big enemy attacks tend to have easily discerned telegraphs, so it’s just a matter of “don’t stand where the bad thing’s about to happen” in most cases.

How about those skills though?

As with most games of this type, you start out with a couple of basics and as you level up, more options become available. Most are attacks, some are utility skills, and so on. Your specialization comes in two forms. At a certain point in the story you get the option to branch out from your starting class into one of three possible choices which will change your play style in a moderate to drastic way, depending. Does my Rogue want to specialize in bladed melee, or maybe take up falconry? I’ll have to figure that out when I get there.

The other main form of specialization comes from selecting a few skills to augment. This will look somewhat familiar to anyone who’s played Path of Exile or, indeed, any number of other games that give you a “constellation” of buffs to abilities.

This system isn’t nearly as complex (or punishing, near as I can tell) as PoE’s, for which I’m quite grateful. All you need to do is peruse the options and decide what kinds of buffs you’re interested in, and go down those paths. On the downside, you can’t do this to all of your selected keybound abilities right away since each slot opens up at specific level-up points (4, 8, 20, 35, and 50… ouch) so make sure you’re picking your bread-and-butter skills early on.

There’s an item crafting system that I need to dig in on. It seems to give you the possibility of improving or replacing the affixes on items… but the one time I played with it the results weren’t what I expected. I’ll have to read up on that.

It can’t all be wine and roses, though, now can it? Let’s talk… monetization.

Generally speaking, what you look like is what gear you’re wearing. If you’re looking to be more glamorous, if you want to shine, if you want a consistent appearance across your equipped kit… you will have to shell out real-world money at the cosmetics shop.

The good news is that this isn’t a pay-to-win scenario. Nothing in the shop gives you stat buffs. It’s purely for the sake of vanity, nothing more and nothing less. (The game also notes that this helps fund ongoing development, which is certainly a valid consideration.) At first I was annoyed, but it hasn’t taken long for me to just ignore the occasional reminder that the shop exists. Maybe some day I’ll fork out for one of the “deluxe edition” upgrades which will give me some currency toward improving my style. Maybe.

I’ll point out one last item which is something of a standard for games of this lineage but might still be a dealbreaker if you’ve been hoping that more game studios would have moved past this sort of thing by now: Your starting five classes are locked to very specific individual looks, gender and race and all. Yes, just like the Diablo options you remember. Given that most of your character’s time will be spent hidden under an array of mismatched equipment (with or without paid-for glamour overlays) it may not be a big deal, but I felt it bears mentioning. If this makes the game a “hard pass” for you… yeah, I get it.

In the end, after a half dozen or so hours into the game, I feel like this one might stick around a while. At least as long as it doesn’t faceplant terribly later in the game experience.

For now, though, I’ll keep on looting all the shinies I can.