When Path of Exile launched on Steam in 2013, I played through the campaign's three acts with a friend, took down Dominus and thought, "that was alright", and didn't touch it again for 13 years. After sinking 700+ hours into the sequel and completing everything from 0.5's seasonal content, I was craving more Path of Exile and decided to check it out again. While it's definitely showing its age in some areas, Path of Exile is still an incredibly deep and addictive experience that is somehow free to play.
Playing the original after sinking so much time into the sequel feels like replaying a favorite game in another language with a randomizer mod installed. A lot of the crafting currency is named the same but has different effects, player movement and traversal skills are simultaneously faster and clunkier, crafting is more deterministic but way more complex and fragmented, and old Expedition is still here. Both games are unique enough that POE2 isn't a strict upgrade and both target specific audiences: POE1 is built off of the DNA of Diablo, while POE2 is built off of the DNA of Elden Ring.
However, the biggest problem with this game is competition from its younger brother, POE2. Last season brought a massive rework and upgrades to that game's endgame, and all of the leagues ported from this game are significantly better in 2 in every way. The only POE1-specific endgame that I really enjoyed was Blight, but that required really specific juicing just to get decent drops from it. Blight also requires a fixed amount of time to complete, so even without optimizing the fun out of the game it feels like your time is better spent just running maps in the long run.
In fact, loot across the board is pretty bad this season, resulting in a "poverty league". Coming from POE2 0.5's buffed endgame loot to this game's un-buffed (from the last league) loot is a huge step down, and the poor player retention shows the playerbase's stance on this. Zizaran, one of the top POE streamers/YouTubers, interviewed the devs about this situation for an hour and a half and their response was basically, "don't worry guys, we'll fix it next season"... two weeks into this season. According to various forums, it seems to be a running theme of unnecessarily nerfing rewards from old content to push people into new content, and it's hard to ignore that when you see clips of streamers getting dozens of Divine Orbs from juicing Voyages (the new league's mechanic) in a very specific manner.
Voyages are fun and all, but they highlight a reoccurring issue with endgame content: single portal instances. Every few years I'd check the reviews for this game and the negatives frequently had the same complaints about connection stability issues. This is still an issue in 2026 and is exacerbated by GGG's obsession with one-shot runs. All endgame content that doesn't take place on the Atlas counts as failed if you leave the instance. It's easy to say, "get gud noob lol just don't die", but this also includes crashes and disconnects, whether its your internet dying or the servers hiccuping and dropping your connection. This season I failed two Voyages near the start due to no fault of my own: one because of a "deadlock detected" crash, and one because the servers lost connection even though my internet was working fine (and on a wired connection too). This is extra frustrating over something like losing a Delve run because you have to first farm Allflame map drops, run the small map to chart the area, chart at least nine maps so you can connect a larger Voyage map together (all hallways have to connect and maps have different shapes), and then run the actual Voyage.
Outside of loot and stability issues though it's an amazing game. If you're looking for a spiritual successor to Diablo 2 that has 14 years of updates and tons of content, this is the game for you. The campaign is a slog, endgame is obtuse, and you'll have to take a college course or two if you want to create your own successful builds, but it's still an incredibly rewarding experience with an unbelievable amount of build diversity. Highly recommended if you're trying to stay sober, since you won't have time for drugs when you could be playing Path of Exile (or Path of Building) instead.
