Last Epoch PC Review
Summary: An accessible ARPG that has huge potential for player customisation that does a few unique things to keep it feeling fresh.
4
Deep customisation!
An action RPG in a similar vein to that of Diablo and Path of Exile, initially released into early access in April of 2014, Last Epoch recently received its version 1.0 update recently, heralding the official, full release of the game. During the early access period, Last Epoch gained a sizable following, amassing over 1 million players and a mostly positive rating on Steam.
Taking place in the land of Eterra, Lost Epoch sees the player picking from one of five classes: Mage, Rogue, Primalist, Acolyte, and Sentinel, and embarking on a journey through time to save the world, and time itself from The Void. Each of these five classes can be further evolved into one of three mastery classes, each with its own specialisation and abilities.
All of the classes have their own expansive skill trees with a vast array of abilities and upgrades to be applied. Many of the abilities themselves even have skill trees of their own to further develop them on a more macro level, tuning a character to exactly how the player wants to play.
With this level of depth and character customisation, it may seem like Last Epoch is all about min-maxing and taking the optimal upgrade path to maximise efficiency in a way similar to that of Diablo IV. However, this isn’t the case, at least not during the general course of gameplay, endgame might require more in the way of specialisation. The 120+ skill trees can all have their points reallocated more or less at will for no penalty. The ability points required to advance up them are awarded frequently and leveling up in general feels quick.
I tried changing up how I played a couple of times, reallocating all my ability points into trees I hadn’t used yet and while the game played differently each time, I didn’t feel disadvantaged in any way. Again though, this may change when it comes to endgame content.
One thing that Last Epoch does a little differently is the faction system, and how your choice when interacting with it changes up the trading and loot systems. By default, a player isn’t enrolled in either faction, the Merchant’s Guild, or the Circle of Fortune. Enrolling the Merchant’s Guild allows for full, free player-to-player trading, whereas the Circle of Fortune removes the ability to trade but enables a buff that increases the frequency and quality of loot that drops from defeated enemies. It’s an interesting choice, though ultimately I didn’t trade at all and eventually went with the Circle of Fortune.
Last Epoch is a good-looking game and ran flawlessly on both my systems and even holds up surprisingly well on Steam Deck, though the controller support needs a little work as it isn’t perfect at the moment. Navigating some menus and screens can be a bit of a pain, heavily relying on the right stick working as a mouse. The various maps are rich with texture detail, but crucially, kept relatively free of actual clutter so that moving around the world is kept simple and easy.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the audio, specifically the soundtrack rather than effects and impact noises, etc. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but it reuses a fair few melodies that aren’t particularly great, to begin with, and the login screen music is now a permanent feature in my own personal hell (thanks to the issues mentioned below.) The voice acting isn’t bad, most of the main storyline characters have a lot of lines that are voiced and it’s a nice break from the text-heavy dialogue these games are often known for.
2024 is rapidly becoming the year of server issues, and the launch of Last Epoch into version 1.0 was no exception. The sheer volume of players eager to check out the game unfortunately tanked the servers making it almost totally unplayable for several days after launch. While not completely fixed, it seems to be in a much better state than it launched in. Getting into the game isn’t a problem now and the long load times as a result of server issues are largely gone. That said, it’s still not perfect and around NA prime time especially, things can slow down a little.
Last Epoch is available as a completely offline game, removing the need for the servers entirely. However, any characters that are created in offline mode are restricted to being permanently offline.
When everything was working as it should I didn’t encounter any issues as such. The biggest annoyance I had with the game was the mini-map, and this is such a small criticism I hardly feel worth mentioning. When first entering an area the map is blank and it’s up to the player to uncover it. So far so normal, however, after zoning and then returning to a previously mapped area, it’s a blank slate again. A lot of the areas in Last Epoch are quite large and have winding, intricate pathways. Having a consistent mini-map would have made traversal a little easier and getting lost less of a problem.
Final Thoughts?
There aren’t a huge number of games that I want to continue to play after I’m done with a review, but Last Epoch is one of them.
If you’re looking for something similar to Diablo, but lighter in tone and a little less heavy on the number crunching, then Last Epoch might be for you. It’s a fun, accessible experience that does a lot right, and now that the servers are starting to stabilise, is worth checking out.
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