Path of Exile 2 is a game jammed to the gills with a nearly paralysing amount of choices to make, but one of the most meaningful was the third one I made, right after I created and named my character. As you start the game's tutorial it asks you to choose your movement type, a choice between the standard ARPG-style mouse control and shiny new WASD controls. I've tried both, but after settling on WASD, I'm here to implore you to try it for yourself.
It's one of Path of Exile 2's best innovations, and driving my heroes around using the keyboard makes it feel like more of a spectacle, especially when you factor in the dodge roll on spacebar. I feel more connected to my character than I ever have in an ARPG before. While I've long been a fan of these sorts of games, ever since I used to watch my best friend's older brother playing Diablo for the first time, it's often felt a little sterile.
Even as particle effects spray across the screen and every monster for miles gets melted down into loot and experience points, the experience is pure power fantasy, but I never found it particularly thrilling. Tooling around with WASD is so transformative that I'm quietly furious at the time I've spent so much time playing games like Diablo and Titan Quest steering my characters around by holding the left mouse button down like a chump. It isn't the only game out there with direct control: console versions of several ARPGs let you steer characters around with analogue sticks and Diablo 4 has a.
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