izigame.me

There used to be a time when a game would be released in it's 1.0 foundational state, and it was fundamentally considered complete. It meant that all the gameplay and story elements were in place, and any ancillary content could be added in at a future date.
This could include extra story elements, items, dungeons, expansions, patches, and DLC etc.
Apparently, not anymore.
I waited for years to see Last Epoch exit early access and finally hit that glorious 1.0 release.
I even waited another year for the game to have all the creases ironed out.
So, I purchased the game, and was having a decent time.
...that is, until the main quest storyline just 'stopped'.
Now to be clear, I don't mean it concluded. I mean, it just 'stops' half-way through the story, and then you're left to go do mindless end-game farming.
I genuinely thought my game was bugged and that the main quest wasn't showing. But a bit of research had me find out that the devs didn't think to complete the most basic element of a game - the story, before a 1.0 launch.
And what's worse, is that people just defend this type of practise?
Imagine if I sold you a book, but left the back half completely blank, and I told you "I'll write the rest some time in the future. Not really sure when though"
Not a sequel, but I'll finish the first book at some indeterminate time in the future.
Nebulous much?
Or imagine you sit down at a restaurant, and the waiter brings you only half of your meal, and says "We only made the first half - even though you paid for all of it. We'll eventually cook you the second half, at some point. Just not today. But you can have dessert! We have loads of dessert!"
Ludicrous. And yet, that's the standard that is being accepted more and more nowadays.
Sure, Last Epoch has some great elements to it. Genuinely.
Character building is cool. Loot filters in the game are top-notch. Visuals can be great.
But presentation means little when the foundational product is incomplete - at full price.
Ridiculous.
Truthfully, I feel cheated. And looking at the 2025 road-map, where story content will be added 'some time later', I realise I should've just waited until the far off future when the game price will have likely dropped.
Cheaper price for an 'actual' finished product.
This just feels like a lazy rush-to-market strategy, and I'd refund if I could, however it took me way more than the allotted refund time to know that the story would just 'cut off'. Which seems scummy.
Also, apparently even one of the game devs thinks you're being too unreasonable in expecting a 1.0 full release of a game to be, y'know, 'fully completed'. As he said that the 1.0 distinction of the game is "Fairly Arbitrary".
I call major bs on that one.
You don't get to redefine what "Full Release" means, just to account for your lack of complete content.
Furthermore, the endgame content, while nice in theory, honestly just boils down to this:
- Click a big floaty island in space.
- Now click on a smaller floaty island in space and fight a bunch of enemies.
- Do 10-20 more of these smaller floaty islands - with the same grinding of enemies.
- Now you've unlocked a boss fight.
- Fight said boss
- Click another big floaty island in space and repeat.
It's boring, and in no way a good placeholder for a completed and memorable story.
If the game was completed, I would've looked back on the game and thought "Yeah wow. That was a nice experience. Not the best I've ever played, but nice. And that's worth a recommend."
As it stands, I think you should stay away from the game for another year (or possibly two) - as of this review date, and reassess the state of the game at that time.
Until then, don't perpetuate crappy business standards - or they'll become normalised and you'll be the only one paying for it.

One thing Last Epoch does better than any other aRPG on the market is letting you truly create your own build. You don’t need guides—developers actively encourage respeccing and experimenting. (For context, I’m a veteran who’s played D1, D2, D3, PoE, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 1 & 2, Victor Vran, WH40k Inquisitor Martyr, and most recently, PoE2)
Last Epoch also has one of the best, if not the best, crafting systems in the genre and is incredibly user-friendly in terms of QoL.
After three miserable acts of QoL-deprived torture in the slog that is PoE2, I gave Last Epoch a shot. The difference was night and day—I felt genuine, physical relief while playing it.
Give this game some love and support it so it can continue to grow and improve.
P.S.
I also have a family, a career, and a life now, so I value my time—and I appreciate companies that value it too. No-lifers can call me casual, but the only thing they’re really flexing is how cheap their time is.
EDIT
I wrote the above words after 40 hours in the game. After another 60 hours, bringing my total to 100 hours, I have some additional thoughts:
- The game still rocks for me. The aforementioned crafting system is even more impressive in the endgame. I’m now far from creating perfect Exalts and even further from obtaining Uniques with Legendary Potential to merge with those Exalts, so there’s plenty to look forward to. There’s this constant feeling of progression—every game session, every hour feels worthwhile.
- I’m still on my first character and not yet feeling bored, but creating a second one and leveling it to the endgame would be a breeze. You can craft powerful leveling gear as an endgame character, choose paths that omit the campaign almost entirely, or bypass just half or three-quarters of it.
- Missions in Monoliths are repetitive in themselves, but this is a gear grinding game (pun intended), and it pulls you in like a slot machine. (Though I’ve only used a slot machine once and won, so I can only assume!) You’re always pushing for another level or another piece of the puzzle to create better and better gear yourself.
- One thing I completely and unjustly omitted before is the graphics. I totally love it! Maybe it’s my lack of expertise, but I find itfar superior to the grey, yellow, and brown slop that PoE2 presents (and is so highly praised). The style feels surrealistic or like magic realism, with breathtaking backgrounds, impossible colors, and a cosmic scope. This is a game that sometimes makes you stop and simply marvel at the sights.
- There’s a full offline mode for those with poor latency or who just don’t care for online interactions. There are also two exclusive factions—one that lets you use an in-game auction house, and the other that prevents auction house use in exchange for much bigger and even targeted loot options. This level of freedom in playstyle is unmatched in any other aRPG.
- Having been pulled into the game, I watched some content regarding the future Cycle (season) and the positive changes coming. Even WASD movement (the only good thing PoE2 implemented) is being tested, though it won’t be available for some time. After some disastrous early access experiences and preorders in recent years, I’m not one to give credit for promises, but I can’t help being excited.
- Lastly, the community in this game is something else. There’s an in-game global chat, and usually, I turn that off. But I’m glad I didn’t in LE. Not only is the community helpful, but it’s also laid back, respectful, and has a healthy amount of banter. Even though I NEVER used any form of global chat in other games, this atmosphere encouraged me to contribute to the discussion. Funny enough, a lot of the discussion involves PoE2 refugees expressing their shock at how an aRPG can cater to the player and enable so much fun without asking for endless chores (before, during, and after gameplay, and some web searches to even know what you’re doing). I never had to alt-tab out of the game to learn something—it’s all there.

Updated Review 2024 version 1.1.7
Ok, I think I played long enough to review this ARPG.
TL;DR: Over 2200 hrs played and I love it! There could be improvements and more content and it is coming down the pipeline
Disclaimer... I'm a filthy single player casual who plays offline only, that being said... I didn't use any specific pre-made builds for the classes, as I enjoy discovering skill synergy through experience and playing the game OFFLINE, now on to my opinion.

CLASSES

Void Knight is a fun class (level 98 Sentinel, 200 corr)
Paladin is a fun class (level 100 Sentinel, 200 corr)
Spellblade is a fun class (level 94 Mage, 200 corr)
Bladedancer is a fun class, struggles a bit at 100 corr (level 86 Rogue, 100 corr)
Beastmaster is a fun class (level 68 Primalist)
Falconer is a fun class (level 78 Rogue)
Forge Guard is not a fun class (level 94 Sentinel) (update, FG is much better after 1.1 release)
Necromancer was not a fun class for me, minions die to fast (level 95 Acolyte)

STORY AND GAMEPLAY

The story is my favorite to play through, I played it many times and it keeps you going from point A to B at a fast pace and engages you with mystery, interesting areas, enemies and allies as you venture your way through Eterra as a mysterious time traveler who has to put order back into time and fight back the chaos of the all consuming void of Orobyss.
As you play through the story, many items will drop. LE offers a way to filter all Items (shift-F) by affixes, rarity and many more. It's a very useful tool and will make item drops more worthy of your class design choices as you progress - I personally just filter out what I don't need depending on the class I chose and by the affixes I want to build my character with.
The Lore of Eterra is mysterious and engaging, keeping you interested into the characters and why everything is happening around the "Epoch". As the main story unravels around you and your chosen fate, the Epoch quickly becomes the center of attention as the last Artifact of Eterra her self, a god in the world with the same name who has vanished, her opposite - is Orobyss, the dark vile god who was only happy when the universe was dark and cold nothingness.
Last Epochs multiverse of time paradoxes is an interesting approach to the idea of an endless loop of game-play, keeping the traveler occupied by endlessly running the "Monolith", timelines which hold Echo islands of lost time and ruined futures that could be holding perfect items you've been looking for. LE also offers a crafting system via the "F" key which allows you to make items with affix shards, runes and Glyphs - all of these components are collected through combat or rewards and are used to manipulate the affixes of the item to be more usable to your build or to make them stronger.
When you do find that perfect unique and that juicy exalted item you will be able to make a "Legendary" item by combining them in a "Temporal Forge", which can only be accessed via a dungeon key that drops from fighting common area bosses. Legendaries depend on the Legendary Potential (LP) of a Unique item, where all or a few Affixes from an exalted item can be fused/applied to the Unique - creating a Legendary item is all RNG of course - but hopefully you'll get want you want eventually, just don't forget to time shift with the "D" key to pick up that sweet new item after forging.
As you get stronger, you will farm even harder Monoliths called "Empowered Monoliths" this version of the monolith is much stronger, offering increased pain modifiers and challenges to the end goals for the player to overcome. Corruption is the key to success, as you will be grinding more and more of it by defeating the echo quest boss to stack "Gazes" these gazes increase the amount of corruption you gain by defeating a shade of Orobyss. The higher your corruption, the more unique loot will drop with LP. (This is the current end game of Last Epoch)

NEMESIS SYSTEM

This was added with the Season 2 Harbringers patch and added special enemies similar to the Exiled Mages. There're 4 types of Nemesis based on Bleed, Poison, Frost and Lightning, each boss has 4 options to select random items from a list - including an egg that can incubate a unique from your inventory into a legendary with random stats or a Unique with Legendary Potential to upgrade at the temporal forge. There are also three choice to go about this - the Banish choice will change the item line up the next time you find a Nemesis spawn point. The Empower option will start a fight and enhance items into Exalteds or Rare items that could also have sealed affixes and or Unique items that will be given random affixes or LP. The Challenge option will also start a fight and the Nemesis will drop random items, shards and various loot along with the 4 items from the selection screen.
In my opinion the Nemesis system is very cool and gives the player something to do with their Unique items they find that have no LP. Before this system we sold them to the vendor or left them on the ground.

HARBRINGERS

The Harbringers are new boss types from the void and can be challenged in Empowered monoliths, the First harbringer occurs in the level 90 normal monoliths and drops an eye that can be used after a Monolith quest boss fight and unlocks the new Monolith area where the Forgotten Knight awaits to hear about your surprising victory. All Harbringers must first be defeated before challenging Abberoth.
I am not a fan of the Harbringer system, however, it's completely optional as there's a tick box after each monolith boss that allows you to summon one after the fight. These new bosses are very hard and fight similar to the arena bosses, they have added special attacks from the quest monolith boss as well as their own. Very challenging and I'm very glad it's not a forced system.

LOOT LIZARDS

I love loot lizards, I want more loot lizards, a whole village even a rainbow mtx pet! yes more, more! Loot lizards are a chasable npc mob that drops gold, idols and most of all loot of all kinds - but hurry before they sink back into the ground!

(No longer going since patch 1.7.6) IMPERIAL UPRISING EVENT

I'm on the fence about this new event, it has made empowered monoliths even harder. There's many mobs in each group with a boss, these mobs are buffed and will kill you faster than anything else in the monolith. It's currently possible to aggro multiple groups of these special undead packs of random ability shooting swarms of stupidity. However, these groups of mobs if defeated can drop multiple uniques, shards, glyphs and items, so if you can defeat them - it's pretty rewarding. However, the event created a flood of shards, glyphs and runes for crafting as now I have 1000s of them. (Not complaining, but kinda made shards value feel underwhelming, some shards are still pretty rare though)

MUSIC

I love the music of Erik Desiderio, I think he nailed the 80ies vibe fantasy pretty good, and like Steve Pardo this will be among my favorite ARPG game osts ever.
I made my own Last Epoch Grind playlist on Spotify too, because you are going to do a lot of grinding, so here it is, over 80 hrs of game composer and game OST tracks.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Pd0i6Bxfw1V0OodxfYvic?si=c5be17597f154562