If you’ve got the Diablo bug right now but don’t want to give Blizzard money or sit around twiddling your thumbs until Diablo IV’s launch, then I have good news for you: You have a lot of other OARPG options. Among them are Last Epoch, a Path of Exile– and Diablo-inspired, time-travel-themed ARPG that was actually crowdfunded way back in 2018 to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars. Eleventh Hour Games’ take on the grimdark roguelike genre hit early access several years ago and is planning launch in 2023, but it had fallen off our radar as it was chiefly singleplayer and not very coverable on our multiplayer-centric MMO site.
But not anymore. Earlier this month, multiplayer functionality was officially installed as a beta in the early access version as the Convergence update. Multiplayer allows four-person parties (you won’t “randomly run into strangers” in combat zones, though eventually you will in town zones), with proper enemy scaling, loot instancing, item gifting, and tweaks for things like keys and mastery quests to work with multiple players on hand.
Post patch, the devs say they are working on multiple outstanding issues and quality-of-life improvements, from stash issues and party creation to chat item linking. “We aren’t going anywhere, and Last Epoch is the game we want to be making for the next decade,” Eleventh Hour wrote on Reddit last week.
Do note this is a buy-to-play game running 35 buckaroos, and its early access reviews are “very positive” – in spite of a very obvious spate of review-bombing over trading.
