I flinched as a white pufferfish man attacked me by hurling blood, and it wasn't even its own. Moments before, it had sprinted past me to munch on a pile of zombie corpses I'd left in my wake, and then it came back to drown me in their entrails. I'd seen hints of it before, but this grotesque creature and its legion of cohorts served as the first definitive indicator that I was venturing into far darker territory than I'd seen in other contemporary action-RPGs like Diablo III and Torchlight 2. I realized then, too, that I wished to end the existence of such vile things, and I was pleased to find that Path of Exile usually made it fun to do so.
Had I not looked it up, I'm not sure I could have told you where all this was taking place. Path of Exile has an overarching story, but its lush graphics and grisly combat overshadow it so thoroughly that you'll only pick it up by paying close attention to quest givers and lore objects. This is Wraeclast, a dumping ground of sorts for criminals and other unsavory types, namely the seven unfortunately gender-locked starter classes you see trapped on a prison ship on the title screen. (I like to think of it as Robert E. Howard's take on Australia.) Even so, key moments manage to assert themselves. The voice acting is up to par, and one interlude that plunges the otherwise sunny world into darkness seems like a delightfully cheeky rebuke to players who click on objects without bothering to learn about their significance first.
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