As part of today's livestream, Grinding Gear Games revealed one of the new classes coming to Path of Exile 2 next year, the Mercenary. The class uses a crossbow and incorporates lessons learned from shooters, including adding WASD movement to the ARPG.
Path of Exile 2, first revealed in 2019 during the inaugural ExileCon in New Zealand, is slated to be released into open beta next June. Multiple classes so far have been revealed, including the quick, combo-busting Monk to the powerful and dangerous Druid. However, while each of these new classes brings a new playstyle and way of looking at the ARPG to play, the Mercenary seems like it fundamentally changed how the developers looked at how the ARPG as a whole was played.
In the video, PoE 2 game director Jonathan Rogers debuts the Mercenary, a crossbow-wielding class that, thanks to the nature of the weapon, requires instant feedback when firing. Rogers describes is as "fundamentally different than a regular bow," given that you needn't draw back an arrow each time you use it. As a result, the crossbow functions more like a gun in the Path of Exile 2 world, which forced the developers to look closer at how its mechanics reflected this need for immediate feedback.
Rogers, in the stream today, says that the team really embraced the lessons they had to learn from shooters to get the Mercenary's crossbow to feel just right. As a result, WASD movement is coming to the ARPG, allowing for freer aiming with the mouse and, in effect, feeling more like a shooter for those Mercenary players. WASD movement isn't only for Mercenary players - any player can use it, though for those looking for the more traditional Path of Exile experience, the click-to-move option is still available.
The Mercenary's crossbows can function much like different styles of gun - from a sniper rifle-style crossbow to the assault rifle, and seeing it in action is giving me incredible Chu Ko No vibes. You can hold two crossbows at a time, but Armor Skills seem to be where the secret sauce of combining skills and abilities will come into play. Path of Exile 2 offers some incredible freedom and synergies, as Rogers explained to us back at PAX earlier this year, and it seems the Mercenary will be no different.
Examples given were an Armor-piercing skill that, when paired with the frozen enemies from a Permafrost ammo skill, caused those frozen targets to explode, dealing AOE damage to other enemies around them. Incendiary Ammo can set enemies ablaze and do high, single-target damage, especially the closer you are to your target. So, while the Crossbow is very clearly a ranged weapon, that doesn't mean the Mercenary won't get down and dirty.
Crossbows can also have attachments such as a grenade launcher. The attachments work like skill gems, giving the Mercenary effectively additional skill slots that can be augmented with support gems. Rogers gave a few examples, such as a slow fuse grenade that could be paired with crowd control options like the Permafrost Burst Shot ammo skill or an oil grenade that can be used to both slow down affected enemies and set alit, blazing them up like Christmas trees in an oil field.
Path of Exile 2 can also allow players to use skills whilst moving, which is shown off with great effect with the Mercenary's Rapid Shot crossbow. Being able to literally run and gun in Path of Exile 2, to either close the distance or perform a tactical retreat, highlights just how different the Mercenary will be from any other class in the ARPG. The Power Shot, another crossbow style, operates like a sniper rifle, which, when paired with incendiary ammo, turns it into more of a rocket launcher thanks to the damage it deals.
You can check out the full presentation in the video embedded above. Path of Exile 2 is highly anticipated, with the team at Grinding Gear Games slowly dripfeeding information throughout the last year. With Path of Exile 2's anticipated open beta launch coming in June, Rogers states that we'll see more about the sequel in the coming months.
