This is how you do it Grinding Gear Games put on a clinic in how to announce a sequel, and put Blizzard's Diablo IV announcement to shame

When Blizzard announced their next instalment to the Diablo series recently, I was... underwhelmed. None of it looked bad, exactly, but none of it was exciting, and every new thing I learned about the game served to lower my interest and excitement levels.

Diablo III suffered from lacking an offline mode, you say?
Well, fuck you, because D4 won't have one, either.

D3 suffered from a lack of depth in its vestigial RPG systems, you say?
Well, fuck you, because D4 will do away with even those vestigial stubs of RPGness, and just add Attack and Defense bonuses to every fucking item that drops.

Did D3 at launch feel like monetization with a half-finished game bolted on as an afterthought?
Well, Blizzard has a shit sandwich just for you, too, because D4 will be all about its monetization. That's right, D4 will be a full-priced AAA game with paid microtransactions, because of fucking course it will be.

And so, with D4's lustre rapidly tarnishing, and BlizzCon well in our rearview mirrors, it was time for Grinding Gear Games to stage their own fan-appreciation/marketing event: ExileCon 2019! We knew in advance that they would be announcing both the upcoming challenge league/3.9 mini-expansion and their D4-killer/4.0 major expansion at this event, but the devil is in the details. What could the tiny New Zealand upstarts possibly do to upstage the gigantic BlizzCon media domination machine?

How about announcing Path of Exile 2, for a start.

That's right, PoE's 4.0 expansion isn't an expansion at all; it's an Overwatch 2-style sequel, which will merge an entirely new seven-act story, an entirely new skill system, an entirely revamped item system, 19 new ascendancy classes (in addition to the game's existing 19, bringing the total to 38), all-new character models with modern animation rigging, totally revamped ambient lighting, sounds, music, and more with the game end-game mapping system that follows the original 10-act campaign... which will still be playable, because of course it will be.

Path of Exile 2 looks more next-gen than Diablo IV can even dream of being, and far more interesting and exciting. Oh, and did I mention that this genuine, for-real, D4 killer, is also 100% free? Because it's free.

GGG then followed that with a gameplay demo. 

I want to emphasize that last word again: DEMO. Not a rapid-cut sizzle reel of isolated snippets of disconnected alpha-version gameplay cut together to give the impression of a game that's further along in development than it actually is, like D4 had; PoE2 had their Technical Director actually playing the game live during the announcement stream, and it looked awesome.

That, dear readers, is a game that's well into its development cycle, and tentatively scheduled to release next December. And then, having raised excitement in the room to a feverish pitch with this vision of where the game will be going in a year's time, GGG then raised the bar still further by showing us where the game will be going next month.

Yes, that's an entirely new end-game system, which they've apparently developed while also working on totally redesigning everything else about the game, too... in their copious spare time, I guess? Oh, and this new expansion also comes with a new challenge league, which also looks really, really good:

But let's be real, here -- I was so completely on board by this point, that Metamorph League could have looked like absolute ass and I'd still be salivating over the possibilities. The fact that it also looks fantastic is just icing on the cake. And then, just for good measure, GGG dunk on Blizzard one last time, by announcing the super-secret "skunkworks" project that they've also been developing, in parallel with everything else.

Your eyes do not deceive you; that is indeed a mobile Path of Exile game. When Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal instead of announcing D4 last year, the results were so disastrous that they were forced to avoid mentioning the fucking thing at this year's BlizzCon. GGG announced their own mobile game, but only after announcing a sequel, and a mini-expansion, and a new challenge league, and GGG's fans cheered.

Really, GGG could have announced anything at this point, and been cheered for it, and I do mean anything. PoE VR? Of course I'll buy an otherwise-useless VR headset to play that shit! A PoE-themed CCG? Sure, I'll try PoE Hearthstone -- sign me up! You've made a PoE board game, you say? Shut up and take my money! Hell, they could have announced a line of PoE-themed sex toys, at this point in the proceedings, and I'd have said it looked interesting.

But then, because GGG weren't yet finished dunking on Blizzard, they announced that PoE Mobile's monetization will be identical to the main game's: free to play, with cosmetic mtx only. Blizzard's game was finished months ago, according to their development partner NetEase, and they're still playing coy about how much it will cost, and how much mtx bullshit will be shoehorned in; meanwhile, GGG's game isn't even finished yet, but their monetization model is already in place, because of course it is. After all, it's just the same monetization model that they're already using on PC.

A couple of days ago, Kripparrian mentioned in passing on his Twitch stream that the GGG weren't exactly blown away by the D4 announcement. And, OMG, can I ever see why. Because this isn't a contest. Path of Exile 2 is already an incredibly exciting and innovative package which will further advance and redefine the genre, while further cementing GGG's position as the reigning kings of the ARPG mountain. D4, by comparison, looks boring and lacklustre; it's just D3, but with even more of what made D3 suck, and an art style and quality that can't even match what GGG are now bringing.

If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I'd have told you that I was worried: worried about the current state of Path of Exile, about the game's aging engine and technical debt, about the direction they might be going in, and about the future of the genre. Today, I couldn't be more stoked. Path of Exile 2 is absolutely my most anticipated release of 2020, and it isn't even close; honestly, if Path of Exile 2 doesn't get Game of the Year attention, then there really is just no fucking justice in games media coverage. GGG have knocked it out of the park, again, and deserve all the praise in the gaming world right now.

Well done, GGG! Truly, and sincerely, well done.

A+

Blizzard? If you're listening... you're going to need to up your game, here. I really hope that you understand exactly what it is that you're up against.