On February 21, the Last Epoch was released. Fans of the diabolic genre produced the game, raising funds on Kickstarter, communicating extensively with the audience, and adding material for years. The efforts paid off: at its peak, 176 thousand individuals played Last Epoch, and many ranked it higher than Diablo IV. Why? Let’s sort this out.
Pumping in the Last Epoch is much more variable
Diablo 4 has poor leveling. Do you have at least three working builds for your class? Oh, great! This is already a success. Take a necromancer and his bone spear – it either makes enemies vulnerable or increases the possibility of critical damage to them. That’s all the variation. In the Last Epoch, each ability has its extensive leveling tree. Let’s take as an example a robber. This character calls a ballista into the arena. At first, it sluggishly shoots enemies, but then hides behind a shield, punches through, sets fire, freezes, ignores armor, explodes, and does many other things. It’s just one perk, and the heroes have a lot of them. Due to this variability, gamers have come up with dozens of competitive builds for each class – and new ones appear every day. At the same time, due to the large number of development opportunities, it can be difficult for players to start playing. But this problem is solved with the help of last epoch boost, when professional gamers help players, especially beginners, with leveling, completing content, extracting resources, and so on. Coaching is also available, thanks to which players can receive answers to their questions, but at the same time go through all the content on their own.
Of course, there are even more opportunities in Path of Exile, but you can develop normally there only according to guides. Last Epoch has a perfect balance: it is more complicated than Diablo 4 but simpler than PoE.
The endgame is more exciting than in Diablo IV
Blizzard has come up with a good storyline campaign in Diablo, but after it, the game is almost over. In the endgame, the hero performs boring tasks of the tree, fights world bosses, farms resources during the invasion of monsters, and goes to the most difficult dungeons – that’s all. These classes get boring in 10 hours. In the Last Epoch, after the end of the main plot, a new story begins with a journey through reality. You are shown dozens of islands: each has story quests, bosses, and special rewards. What is the blessing of the Great Whisper of Orobis worth, which increases Void damage by 91%? There is already more such content than in Diablo 4 with its three seasons.
Such a filter system should be everywhere
In the Blizzard game, the backpack was constantly overflowing with junk. I had to open it every 15 minutes, look at every little thing, and mark it as garbage. The creators of Last Epoch resolved this issue with a sophisticated filter. Set it up so that only the necessary equipment is highlighted. Did a stupid wand fall out of the enemy? His icon won’t even appear on the screen. Figure out the filter yourself, prescribe the requirements for each desired item, or apply a prepared one. The system is so convenient that it should appear in every diabloid.
All MMO elements can be disabled
We remember how the disappearance of a lustful man was investigated in Diablo 4. It turned out that the demoness seduced him and turned him into a piece of meat. The quest was grim and ruthless, but the whole atmosphere was destroyed by other players. They ran up during the dialogue and started doing strange things: casting spells, sending greetings, summoning wolves. Other people’s heroes do not bring real benefits – except that it is interesting to fight with them in the Fields of hatred. That’s why we were delighted to see a full-fledged offline mode in Last Epoch. With it, MMO turns into a normal single-player game without other gamers, server crashes, and connection interruptions.
Challenges during development
The developers have been creating Last Epoch for six years and have invested all their love for the genre and all their energy into it. However the team was small, and the budget was limited. Therefore, the novelty lacks the gloss and epicness of Diablo 4. We wanted to examine every bush there, the blows looked epic, and the effects were mesmerizing. What can we say about the luxurious cut scenes? It didn’t quite work out to make good enough servers. In the early stages, there were lags and crashes from the game, or simply it was not allowed on the server. But the good news is that the developers reacted quickly to the problems and quickly fixed them. Now there are no significant problems and you can have a good time in the game.
The high budget and casualness make Diablo 4 a more suitable game for the mass gamer at the start, who does not care about the variety of builds and a well-developed endgame. But if you crave more depth and don’t go online, the Last Epoch is made for you.
