Last Epoch players declare game is ‘perfect middle ground’ between Diablo 4 and Path of Exile

Last Epoch players have dubbed the game the “perfect middle ground” between Diablo 4 and Path of Exile ahead of launch.

After years as an early access game, Last Epoch is making the jump to a full release on Feb. 21 and has attracted plenty of attention in the community, which is hoping for a fresh of breath air in the RPG dungeon-crawler genre.

With many players having had their hands on the game for several years in the early access period, they’re certainly qualified to issue a verdict on the title—with some having declared lands perfectly between established games in the genre, Diablo 4 and Path of Exile.

A commenter on Reddit issued the “perfect middle ground” verdict on Last Epoch, adding that Diablo has “zero-depth systems” and Path of Exile requires you to “study for a month” before you can understand the game—a sentiment others agreed with. Other commenters hyped the skill system in Last Epoch, which makes them feel like “all builds are viable,” while another was left impressed by the “addicting” crafting system.

The full release of Last Epoch may come at the perfect time, with Diablo 4 attracting criticism for adding a mount that costs more than the actual game, though the title could be given a new lease of life when it is added to Xbox Game Pass on March 28. But while that opens the door to new players, more experienced players already seem to have been driven away.

At the time of writing, Last Epoch had a 24-hour peak on Steam of 32,396 players on the early access version of the game, shown by SteamDB, while Diablo 4’s numbers in the same period are short of 13,000. Last Epoch also boasts a higher all-time peak than Diablo 4, despite the full version of the game not yet being released.