The BEST MONTH EVER for ARPG Fans! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast Episode: The BEST MONTH EVER for ARPG Fans! Release Date: April 18, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, hosts Greg Miller and Xanth delve deep into what they herald as the "Best Month Ever for ARPG Fans." Released on April 18, 2025, the episode explores significant updates and releases from three major Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) titles: Path of Exile 2, Last Epoch, and Diablo 4. Alongside insightful discussions, the hosts share personal experiences, community feedback, and expert analysis on the current state and future of the ARPG genre.

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1. Setting the Stage for ARPG April

Xanth kicks off the conversation by emphasizing the unprecedented convergence of major updates from the "Big Three" ARPGs within the same month:

“April 2025 is the first time that three major players in the ARPG genre are dropping major releases and updates in the same month... It's the greatest month for an ARPG fan that I have witnessed in a long time.” [05:08]

Greg echoes this sentiment, highlighting the excitement and anticipation within the ARPG community for these simultaneous updates.

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2. Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunts

Release and New Features

• Path of Exile 2 launched its first major update, introducing a new class, the Huntress, along with new systems, items, and skills.

Gameplay Experience

• Greg shares his personal experience, noting the game’s increased difficulty and rewarding nature:

  “When I got in there, immediately, what I kept saying was, 'This is so much different that I'm not having the same issues I was having with Diablo.'” [15:10]

Developer Responsiveness

• Xanth praises Grinding Gear Games (GGG) for their swift response to community feedback:

  “What’s been impressive is the speed at which Grinding Gear Games has reacted to it... They're starting to adjust to what early access should be for this game.” [16:00]

Community Feedback

• Mixed reactions from the community are discussed, with some appreciating the new class and others critiquing changes to the game world:

  “Herbie Ergos says the new class is awesome, but the changes to the world in Poe 2 are God awful.” [17:09]

Roadmap and Future Updates

• Concerns are raised about the game remaining in early access for an extended period:

  “The goal was a year. It launches in December of 2024, but it's April. That's eight months from now... I'd rather let them cook, you know, take a little bit more time.” [21:26]

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3. Last Epoch: Tombs of the Erased Update

Introduction to Last Epoch

• Xanth introduces Last Epoch as the "perfect middle ground" between Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4, offering both online and offline modes:

  “It is the perfect introductory ARPG where you can then kind of figure out which direction you would want to go in.” [25:58]

New Update Highlights

• The latest update focuses on end-game content, introducing new factions and expanding upon existing systems to retain player interest.
• Skill System Enhancements:

  “There are a lot of tools for a new player to just go and have fun... You get a lot of that kind of control.” [32:57]

Controller Support and Accessibility

• Significant improvements in controller support make the game more accessible:

  “Controller support was really great last night, and I had the... significant improvement.” [30:50]

Monetization and Future Prospects

• Xanth discusses the game’s monetization strategy, focusing on paid cosmetics:

  “They have skill cosmetics, which are the things that will get me every single time.” [47:04]

Community Reception

• Overall positive sentiment towards the update, with players appreciating the balance between challenge and accessibility:

  “Overall sentiment seems to be pretty high around how it has been going.” [25:07]

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4. Diablo 4: Belial's Return and Upcoming Features

Current State and Roadmap

• Xanth outlines Diablo 4's current roadmap, highlighting the upcoming season on April 29th, titled Belial's Return, which introduces new boss powers, earnable pets, and an unexpected IP collaboration with Berserk:

  “We have a little Berserk style Diablo cinematic happening here to announce the partnership. We have our barbarian dressed like Guts from Berserk.” [52:12]

Seasonal Content and Challenges

• The season focuses on refining existing systems and introducing new functionalities to enhance gameplay:

  “We’re getting boss powers, there’s an earnable pet, there’s a new IP collab...” [52:10]

Community Feedback and Course Correction

• Greg and Xanth discuss the community's mixed feelings about Diablo 4’s difficulty and the developers’ efforts to balance the game:

  “I think there is a little bit of that course correction that should be coming in the most recent Update on the 29th.” [60:35]

Future Expansions

• Anticipation builds for future expansions, with hopes for significant content drops to maintain player engagement:

  “I think people are hungry for that... unless they launch major expansions sooner rather than later.” [63:23]

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5. The ARPG Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities

Genre Evolution

• Xanth reflects on the shift towards always-online models and live service updates, questioning their impact on the ARPG experience:

  “Being able to take yourself offline from time to time in an ARPG is phenomenal.” [66:09]

Balancing Live Services and Player Freedom

• The discussion highlights the importance of balancing continuous updates with player autonomy, advocating for features like offline modes and meaningful content updates.

Future Directions

• Xanth suggests that embracing both live services and traditional ARPG elements could rejuvenate the genre:

  “Last Epoch has that offline option which maybe something to push the genre in a different direction.” [64:39]

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6. Recommendations and Closing Thoughts

Choosing the Right ARPG

• Xanth offers guidance for new and veteran players navigating the crowded ARPG market:

  “My biggest recommendation for anybody who is new to this genre is honestly, start with Last Epoch.” [70:13]

Final Insights

• The hosts conclude with a positive outlook, encouraging listeners to explore these ARPGs while celebrating the vibrant and competitive landscape that April 2025 has brought to the genre.

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Notable Quotes

• Xanth: “April 2025 is the first time that three major players in the ARPG genre are dropping major releases and updates in the same month... It's the greatest month for an ARPG fan that I have witnessed in a long time.” [05:08]

• Greg Miller: “When I got in there, immediately, what I kept saying was, 'This is so much different that I'm not having the same issues I was having with Diablo.'” [15:10]

• Xanth: “It's important to balance the needs of different player types to avoid burnout and keep the game engaging for everyone.” [17:55]

• Greg Miller: “You don't have to play all three, but you might find yourself kind of chasing the dragon of the ARPG awesomeness that they all offer and getting sucked in.” [71:00]

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Conclusion

This episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast serves as a comprehensive guide for ARPG enthusiasts, spotlighting the simultaneous major updates from Path of Exile 2, Last Epoch, and Diablo 4. Through a blend of expert analysis, personal anecdotes, and community feedback, Greg Miller and Xanth provide valuable insights into the evolving ARPG landscape, making it an essential listen for both seasoned players and newcomers to the genre.

Transcript

[Xanth]

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[Greg Miller]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kinda Funny Gamescast for Friday, April 18, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside Kinda Funny's ARPG expert and the host of the Diablo podcast, it's Xanth.

[Xanth]

Well, hello, Greg. How are you doing?

[Greg Miller]

I'm good, Xanth. It always does me well to see you broadcasting from this basement. You're always ready for kidnapping. What are you doing down there?

[Xanth]

Well, I live in the Midwest. We have a basement dwelling and I'm just kind of sitting on the outskirts of my bar in case I need an emergency drink at some point.

[Greg Miller]

Say the word, I'll join you. We're in there. It's 11:30 here.

[Xanth]

I mean. Oh, speaking of which, you know, you were. You were in my neck of the woods recently.

[Greg Miller]

I was. Of course you say that. You're being very liberal. You live in Wisconsin. Milwaukee, if I remember correctly. I was in Lyle, Illinois. You and your son came down for one night with Greg Miller.

[Xanth]

Thank you so much and phenomenal show. Great to be there. But you were. You were in my neck of the woods. I did trade you a little bit of beer.

[Greg Miller]

You did.

[Xanth]

Did you try it yet?

[Greg Miller]

I did. Oh, my God, yes, I did. What's the actual name of it? I don't remember. Off the top of my.

[Xanth]

It's called Ecto Cooler.

[Greg Miller]

But they spell it funny, don't they? Whatever. But it's a beer that tastes exactly like Ecto Cooler. Exactly like Ecto Cooler. It was so good. It was delicious.

[Xanth]

Right When I had had it, I was like, Greg is going to love this. I'm glad to hear that. Now, a little bit more housekeeping before.

[Greg Miller]

We wait, but who makes that beer? I forget who makes that beer.

[Xanth]

That is Eagle Park Brewery in Wisconsin. So if you are in the Midwest and can get your hands on it, I wanted to be able to get it for you when I was in Californ. The distribution is not that vast, but I believe Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa area, you should be able to get your hands on it.

[Greg Miller]

So good.

[Xanth]

It really is. It's phenomenal. Now, Lamar, housekeeping. As I was saying before, you know. You brought the briefcase.

[Greg Miller]

I see it was specto cooler. I knew they spelled it funny. Specto cooler.

[Xanth]

Oh, there it is. I mean, I'm sure there's like some legality that you can't.

[Greg Miller]

Obviously somebody gonna be googling around for ecto cooler. They're not gonna find it. You look for specto cooler. You'll get it back though.

[Xanth]

Cooler. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Anyways, you had the briefcase. You were offering it up for people to be able to put in notes to Tim. My son had a note and we didn't get a chance to. To drop it off. I feel like this is probably the best place to do it. I said I would share it if you don't remember.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody, my name is Greg Miller and I have stars in the bank from Kinda Funny Games Showdown. It's our show. You'll see right after this. We're doing an episode. This, of course, entitles me to challenge Tim whenever I want to for three of his stars. I brought the briefcase because everybody loves the briefcase to Chicago. So many people took photos. And then just organically, people wanted to leave hate mail inside of the briefcase for me to read to Tim, which I have been doing all week. I'm happy you're here even though Tim is not to read some hate meal. So go for it.

[Xanth]

I was really hoping Tim would be here, but.

[Greg Miller]

Coward.

[Xanth]

This is courtesy. Courtesy of my son. It's real simple. Oh, it's just. It just says let Tim host.

[Greg Miller]

That's positive. I don't like. That's a positive. Oh, oh, oh. Ah, these nuts he got him. You suck, Tim. You suck.

[Xanth]

Are there. Are there three stars there as well?

[Greg Miller]

There are three stars there. Your son's wise beyond his years. How old is he?

[Xanth]

He's 13.

[Greg Miller]

Look at that. That kid's got a future. That kid's got a career. I hear he's playing monster Hunt wilds too.

[Xanth]

He's. He's a man of taste.

[Greg Miller]

Clearly his dad isn't.

[Xanth]

No, he gave his dad the code.

[Greg Miller]

But his son's playing it. Apparently not like there's a million arpgs coming out this month.

[Xanth]

No. And that's a man. Well, that is a beautiful transition. You know, like, what am I doing here? It's not just to insult Tim. It's not. Well, no, I mean, not to just give your recommendation. We could spend a lot of time doing that. It's. It's the greatest month for ARPGs that I have witnessed in a long time.

[Greg Miller]

And so top level before I give the intro to the show. What does that mean?

[Xanth]

So this is the the first time that like three major players in the ARP genre are dropping major releases and updates in the same time span, all in the month of starting at the beginning with Path of Exile, then Last epoch, and finally Diablo 4 at the end. Every, like every fandom kind of gets its own little celebration, its own little update to dive back into. And it's a busy month for me.

[Greg Miller]

I want to hear all about this. I want to talk about ARPG being the April 2025 being the best month ever for ARPG gamers. But first, I'll remind everybody this is the Kind of Funny gamescast. Each and every week we talk to you about the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things we need to talk about. We do it live on YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Twitch TV, kindafunnygames and podcast services around the globe for your listening and viewer pleasure. If you enjoy what we do, of course, pick up the Kinda Funny membership over on YouTube.com kinda funnygames, patreon.com kinda funny, Apple and Spotify. You can pick up the Kinda Funny membership. You can get all of our shows that's more than 80amonth A.D. free. And of course you get your daily dose of me Greg Miller in a one man podcast series usually from my car called Greg Way, where I give you 15 to 20 minutes each and every day, adding up to about four hours of exclusive podcasts each and every month. No bucks tossed away. No big deal. Like subscribe Share if you got Amazon prime, you got Twitch Prime. Give us that free sub and please tell your friends about us, whether it be through the reviews or the ratings. If you are watching live and you are an ARPG nerd like us, of course we have YouTube super chats ready to go. Go to YouTube.com kofun super chat there to be part of the show with your questions, Comments, Concerns, Recommendations Guitar Hero Arrow wrote in and said I got an extra Indiana Jones PS5 pre order bonus code for any interested KFBFs can't wait to finally swing in this weekend. The code is Q9 5Q47RMA38M Go get that one. And then down here Omega Buster says Support Tim, the People's Champion. Don't let phony baloney Greg Miller steal the stars. Hashtag Save the stars. You can't steal what is promised. All right, the real theft On Game Showdown has been Blessing giving softballs to Tim over and over again. I'm getting quizzed on what, what the Freedom wars publisher Fighting Games are putting out. He's like, what Freedom Wars? What's the. What's Epona's name? You know what I mean? Get the hell out of here. Get the hell out of here.

[Barrett]

Epona. That's. That's the Epona's name.

[Greg Miller]

I know. And it's upsetting. That's the kind of question Tim gets on the show. You're CEO, junior. There's no wall protecting us. You be on my side this time, aren't you? Be on my side. I mean, like Chad, I'm touching him. I'm touching Barrett. It's weird, but he's not on camera so it wouldn't hold up in court. Housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person small business. All about live talk shows. You already got Kinda Funny Games Daily. Today it was covering Nintendo's commitment to the Switch 2 price and the new US pre order date of April 24th. That's right. Right? I didn't double check it. I shoved it in there. April 24th, that's right. After this, you'll be getting an episode of Kinda Funny Game Showdown. We'll see how Blessing tries to screw me out of my birthright this time. And then after that, it's the Kinda Funny podcast talking about the sexiest song lyrics of all time. That's my topic. I'm bringing that topic. Oh, okay, okay. And then if that wasn't enough, you are also getting a 2xko stream that rounds out your incredibly packed Friday.

[Barrett]

That also might be a rematch stream as well.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, it might be rematch.

[Barrett]

Rematch. Like open beta this weekend. Oh, so Bless is like emotionally being pulled towards two games right now.

[Greg Miller]

He'll end up with a rematch. Is Rematch coming this year?

[Barrett]

Yeah, it's got a release date.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Because when I almost put in my fantasy team a long time ago, like before this beta, and then I was like, I'm not confident. And then I was like, maybe I should have. I know it's been picked up now.

[Barrett]

Yeah, I did. I picked that up.

[Greg Miller]

It's going to be great. If you're a Kinda Funny member, you can get 20 minutes of unfettered access to my mind right now over on YouTube.com kindafunnygames and patreon and Spotify Apple. And thank you to our Patreon producers, Anatoly Ass Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster. Today we're brought to you by Imperial Factor and Shady Rays. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with what is and forever will be topic of the show. I forgot to load into the png. It's fine. It's just a day. We're just doing a day in here. It's fine. Xanth, as you said, it's April 2025 and three major ARPGs have three major content updates. What I love about you, Xampf, is you grab the bull by the horns. All right? You came to me and said, hey, we should do a gamescast about this. This is why you call me kind of funny as ARPG expert. I said, that is right. So you take the reins. Explain to me how what's happening, where this is happening, which is the biggest, what's the hottest? Does anyone care about Diablo anymore? I got a million questions, but I want you to have your hosting now.

[Xanth]

Oh, crap. I get to host. Let Xanth host, but not these nuts. So in starting for this. Oh, am I getting moved over?

[Greg Miller]

Wow, Did I see that live yet? Oh, you're doing the thing, so. Oh, you put him in the host chair. Barrett's so fun. I love Barrett.

[Xanth]

This is. This is quality. I've been upgraded to host. So ARPG April, right? It is massive. I'm gonna pull up what I wrote here because I did spend a lot of time this breakdown. April 2025 is the first time that the Big Three and ARPGs have released major content updates in the same month. There's a lot of cross pollination, but a lot of loyalty to each respective franchise. No matter where your allegiances lie, April is a great month for an ARPG fan. It's been hard. I think I the.

[Greg Miller]

I titled this how like now it's now it's been hard.

[Xanth]

Yeah, I titled this how to whole ass3ARPGs. You know, referencing the great Ron Swanson with don't. Don't half ass something. Whole ass. It. It's hard.

[Greg Miller]

It's impossible. It's gotta be. I mean, again, this is your preferred genre. You play these games on the treadmill for hours a day, every day. You also have a family and you also have a job and you have all these. But you are whole assing ARPGs all the time, let alone to have three major updates. I'm fascinated to see how you've been juggling.

[Xanth]

Got a lot harder last night. I can say that. So let's start at the front end. Beginning of the month, Path of Exile release for path of exile 2 rather released its first major update, introducing a new class, new systems, new items, new skills with path of exile 2. Dawn of the Hunts. Barrett, do you want to pull up the little trailer there and I'll just kind of chat for you audio listeners, which is me and I appreciate you. I am 100% an audio listener.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, for the record, so am I. I listen on Spotify. That's where I'm at.

[Xanth]

Right. For your audio listeners, we're just gonna delve a little. What is path of Exile 2's first trailer? For their new release, we're seeing an Amazon start to scour the forest and follow a wisp. And this is really the introduction to the new class that was introduced to the base six that we started with. Now moving on into a spear wielding shield carrying Amazon or technically Huntress. But it's hard to not default to just calling it, but she's Amazon.

[Greg Miller]

The island of Themyscira. All right, everybody, don't forget, yeah, you.

[Xanth]

Can live out your Wonder Woman fantasies here.

[Greg Miller]

I won't be doing it in Monoliths game.

[Xanth]

No, you won't. So you'll have to get that somewhere else and maybe Path of Exile will be for you. So this releases April 4th and GGG Grinding Gear games is a smaller development company, you know, out of New Zealand. That's first major release was Path of Exile one. And then this was the major step up in back in December, you know, it finally coming to life and getting a lot of good traction and turned so many heads.

[Greg Miller]

Right. Was one that you texted me. You're like, I know you're Diablo burned out, but this is different. You need to play this. And I didn't believe you. And I played it and I was like, oh my God, this is so much different that I'm not having. Having the same issues I was having with Diablo.

[Xanth]

Yeah. I think we'll talk about today is that each one of these games kind of offers something a little different. What's comical is, as you will see during all the trailers, an isometric ARPG is an isometric arpg.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Xanth]

They all have a very similar look. Like you're pushing that character forward with a mouse or a controller. You're casting a spell, you're swinging a sword. That's always kind of the same. However, each of these games has a very different approach to what happens after that. Path of Exile is what I would consider to be like more of the. The difficult game. Right. The boss fights can be a little bit more difficult. The skill system, the the mapping at the end game can be a little bit more difficult and a little bit more challenging, but you're rewarded. Sure.

[Greg Miller]

That was what drew me in, right. When. When you called me in for December to play it. When I got in there, immediately, what I kept saying, right, it was the weight. This felt weightier. It felt like, okay, cool, I'm not moving as quickly. Two enemies are a threat versus, you know, being surrounded by a mob in Diablo and not caring about it. And then, yeah, getting to these battles that I kept describing for lack of being a smarter man to the audience as I think it's what Andy and the crew love about souls, likes where it's. I come in and I gotta learn this boss's pattern because if not, I'm going to die and then I'm gonna have to restart and not lose everything. But I would prefer to get in there and actually feel like I'm Lear learning on that one.

[Xanth]

Yeah. And you're. You're rewarded for that knowledge. Like you learn those bosses and then the next time through which I know you hate you. You're not a big fan of having to replay the campaign, but every time you come back to it, it's a little bit easier because you. You know what that boss is going to throw at you. You get a little bit better with those skills. So this releases April 4th, and as you, you know, kind of alluded, I've spent a lot of time there because it was a very. It's been a quality update and I'm. I'm not quite done with it yet.

[Tim]

The.

[Xanth]

The nicety of ARPGs is you have that ability to kind of bounce off them. After a couple weeks, you can feel like you've got everything done. I am nowhere near that yet with path of exile 2. This. This update definitely has hooked me. Being able to kind of go in and play around with a power fantasy that I've always enjoyed. Being able to throw lightning spears around. Done. That's. That's all I'm going to do for a very long time. It's not to say there haven't been challenges. Like, that's part of this cycle of ARPGs, right. You push out a major update and then you react. You see the community like, oh, we. We have to scale back. What's been impressive is the speed at which Grinding Gear Games has reacted to it. When it launched on the first day, everything was significantly more difficult. Monster health and speed was too high, and they were able to kind of gauge those reactions and start patching accordingly. And they're still reacting. This is an early access game, right? Yeah, of course it has that weird challenge of like it's in early access, but they also are kind of treating it as if it's a live game where here's a major patch and we've been holding off on doing quick reactions, whereas I think they're starting to adjust to what early access should be for this game of. Okay, we're getting a lot of feedback. Let's start fixing that before we go on like a two or three month hiatus before the next big thing, like we would in a traditional ARPG space. So it's me a bit about that reaction.

[Greg Miller]

I want, I want to know what you're getting because in the chat over Here we had two chats come through about Path of Exile 2 and this update. Herbie Ergos says the new class is awesome, but the changes to the world in Poe 2 are God awful. And then Tin and 54 says, Love the launch, but it seems like GGG lost the thread on what people want path of exile 2 to be.

[Xanth]

I think they have like this weird balance to strike. It's much like the jump from Diablo 2 to 3 or from Diablo 1 to Diablo 2 where you have a departure from what the game used to be. You know, it is its own thing. And how do you keep both sets of players happy? You know the.

[Greg Miller]

Of course, wait, this has been the big struggle with Diablo 4, right? As a noob and somebody who just wants to never come back. And then people like you want to play it non stop, right?

[Xanth]

There's. There's always gonna be this struggle for the people who can play. You know, like as you were saying before, I. I do play a lot, but I'm not a streamer. I don't play for eight to ten hours a day. And how do you balance for that? How do you balance for the people who are going to put in over the course of a week what your traditional player might be able to get through over the course of three months? And that always leads to burnout. I think that's the other part of the ARPG problem is there's a lot of burnout with any game that you play for that amount of time. I'm always kind of relatively balanced with it where I don't feel like I burn out that quickly. But there are times when things just don't hit. And for a lot of people, this most recent release with path of exile 2, it just didn't hit. You probably played a lot in the. The first Launch for early access. Sure, you're coming back and things are still a little bit slower. You've got a new class, you've got new things to play with, but it hasn't changed dramatically that you, you want to hang out there for too long. The seasonal mechanic is a little lackluster. It could be faster, it could be more engaging, and then loot could be dialed up just a little bit more as well. But even with all that, I'm still having a shitload of fun. Like, I'm just like, I've, I've been torn to like going back and I was playing last epoch last night, but in the back of my head I was like, oh, I could be. I could dip back in and play a little bit more. And you, you can't get 30 minutes.

[Greg Miller]

In before I go to bed, right?

[Xanth]

I could, I could balance this. So yeah, there has been a lot of that kind of sentiment within the path of exile 2 community of just wanting something a little bit different. And I think it still is. Early access, they, they've adapted a lot from what they've been able to see. It'll be curious to see what happens in the next couple weeks. You know, are they going to keep moving the levers? Are they, are they going to keep balancing it out or are they going to kind of, you know, make a few more changes and then start pushing towards what will be the next major update there? There's still, what, five more classes that needed to show up, a bunch of new ascendancies. There are three full acts that aren't present. So there's a lot of things that are still missing. And I, I think sometimes it's like, how do we view early access? Do we. Do we treat it as the, the total game and judge it accordingly, or do we wait until we have all of the evidence before us before we can come to those conclusions? And I don't know, I, I don't think there's a right way. I think all feedback is, is good as long as you can back it up. The, the other danger with these games too is like a meta, somebody out there way smarter than me figures out the best way to build a character or the best possible skill and then everybody kind of plays that and then what are you missing? You're missing like half of your player base trying and messing up things to, to give you good feedback. Like you can give feedback about the most powerful skill. I'm like, oh, that's overtuned. But are you messing with all the other ones that you blew past. You're not. So that also kind of affects that cycle in terms of how the game will then be iterated on.

[Greg Miller]

Have they given any roadmap for Path of Exile of where they think they are with eventually getting to a full release or leaving early access? Or are we just going to be in early access for a long, long, long, long time?

[Xanth]

I. As far as I know, I think they're under the impression that they can get it out before. So the. The goal was a year. It launches in December of 2024, but it's April. That's eight months from now to still introduce three new acts and five new classes. I. I don't see it. And honestly, I'd rather let them cook, you know, take a little bit more time. I'm happy with what I have. I'm gonna keep coming back again and again, but I. I really do not see this launching legitimately in December.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. Okay. But overall from you, thumbs up on this update.

[Xanth]

Oh, 100 and I would recommend it to everybody to at least get in and play. I mean one, it's always nice to play with a new class. There's a whole bunch of new support gems. I've found that if you played on day one, the, the leveling of a character was far more brutal. It was harder. It felt a little bit more of a slog. The changes that have happened in just like the. The two weeks time have been significantly better where I play only hardcore, so I do die and then I have to go back and redo it all over again. So with each character it's actually gotten easier. It does feel easier. It does feel better. So I, I would say it's worth it if you maybe kind of bounced off of it and then challenge yourself maybe. We all know lightning spear is one of the best skills. Try something different. Try something different and see how that's. That's playing for you. Because there are a bunch of other good builds out there. You just gotta stray away from the meta a little.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, get in there, Greg.

[Xanth]

Toss some spears around. It's awesome.

[Greg Miller]

I'm sure it is. It's just the thing that for path of exile 2, which I loved back in December, I enjoyed and I'm just not the early access guy. I would rather there be like here it is. Boom. The game is complete. To what is the same thing with Hades too? Loved Hades. You know what I mean? Like, I'm ready to play, but I want it to be final and done and this is their. The final. I know everything will be Updated forever and ever and ever. But, like, here's the vision of what it is and where we want in all the balances. And this is that Zaba. Like, I'm not. You know how it's so rare, sadly, to some degree, but so rare that even an ongoing game that's always evolving, changing, can keep me around for a long time. So rather than come in and have it be. I played 20 hours of Path Exile 2 at early access launch when X, Y and Z wasn't working right. But I did it anyway. I don't want that to be the experience, so I'd rather hang on, but this is enticing. But then, of course, I'm hunting. I'm monster hunting out there. All right? Your son's got to get on my friends, my friend's list. If you're not going to play, I'll be over there playing with him. Because we got to get out there. We got too many monsters over there thinking that they're the top of the food chain, Barrett. All right? They're just trying to live their life, but not in my world. I'm going to skin them and wear them. That's what I'm doing.

[Xanth]

Jesus. I mean, I will get there eventually.

[Greg Miller]

See, that's how I feel about Path of Exile, right?

[Xanth]

It's just so hard. I got so many things going on. I got to level so many characters.

[Greg Miller]

There's too many games now.

[Xanth]

Yeah, it's a tough. Like I said, it's a tough month where, you know, here it is. Path of Exile 2 goes April 4th. It is the 18th, and I am still, like, deep in on that. And then I gotta pause and jump into to Last Epoch, because that is. That is new, that is fresh, that is exciting.

[Greg Miller]

What I need from you in reality here is a refresher on what Last Epoch is. When Last Epoch originally launched, you weren't part of our community yet. All right, I did. I wasn't. Diablo podcast. Maybe I was listening, maybe I wasn't. I don't know. But you weren't, like, on a first name basis, texting me what I need to be playing. So this is one that the chat in the audience had been like, oh, Greg, you'd probably love Last Epoch. You should play Last Epoch. I was like, he's on a console. They're like, no. I'm like, well, no chance. You know what I mean? Is it Steam Deck compatible? I don't even know. I can't remember. This is so long ago.

[Xanth]

Is.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know. I asked for a Code. Yesterday I got my email about the update. I asked for a code, so I'm. Because I know you swear by what it's already done, let alone what this new update is, yada yada. But what is Last Epoch in this pantheon now of path of exile 2 being the harder version and slower version of Diablo 4, which I know so well, and I feel like so many people know so well. Where does Last Epoch fit in?

[Xanth]

I think it is the, you know, as we're going through this conversation, it's the perfect middle ground. It is not as rigorous perhaps as Path of Exile and it's not as streamlined as Diablo 4. It's. It's really right in the middle. And I think honestly it's probably the perfect introductory arpg where you can then kind of figure out which. Which direction you would want to go in. You know, as we're seeing here, we have the. The newest trailer for Tombs of the Erased, their next big update, you know, their seasons that they have.

[Greg Miller]

This is the one that just came out.

[Xanth]

Yep, just launched yesterday. Now with Last Epoch, it's so much more friendly to the individual player. You have your different classes, like in any arpg, but you also have what I think is, is really fundamentally something that has gone missing from the ARPG genre. You have an offline mode online is built in to so many ARPGs. This is one that has offline compatibility. And you were talking about like wanting possibly for Steam Deck. This to me strikes me as one of those perfect Steam deck games. I don't have a Steam Deck, but if I did, I'd be playing it like nonstop. Especially with that offline functionality.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's huge. As somebody who's on the plane all the time, that's always a bummer for me when I'm super into Diablo or even thinking of Path of Exile, even, you know, Monster Hunter, which is a different conversation because it does, but I don't have it on, you know, blah, blah.

[Xanth]

Right, right. Yeah, it, it has that, that functionality which also then makes it just a little bit easier to kind of pick up because you don't have to be online. You don't have to worry about playing with other people in tandem with that. It does have just a great way to distribute loot like you are. You have a lot more in depth crafting that. You know, if there are things that you want for your character, if you want your character to be stronger, you have a lot more control of that. It's less relian. Know, sometimes the hard part of a ARPG is just the, the randomness of it. Right. I'm trying to find this particular item to, to be stronger. I want a better sword, whatever. And the crafting tools within Last Epoch make that significantly easier to kind of happen. So a lot of tools for a new player to just go and have fun. The difficulty as well is not, it's not super rigorous. You're not like the boss fights are not at the level of Path of Exile. You can kind of jump in and no matter what choice you make along the way, you're going to be successful. Like I don't think there's a bad way. Like I don't think you can choose a skill and items throughout this game that will not get you to the end game of it. It's, it's pretty well built in that regard. And we should point out that you know, this is 11th Hour Games. It's an all remote independent studio that is putting this together. So no central hub, you know, just everybody kind of on their own remotely and independently making a great game. And I think that's also kind of worthy of being celebrated as of course people are kind of being forced back in. We've seen a lot of studios force their, their people back in and to have them all remotely come together and be successful is, is pretty awesome.

[Greg Miller]

So tell me about the update.

[Xanth]

Well, I'm only just a little bit in. You know, as I said I'm. It's hard to get three ARPGs all in one go. I think I ended last night at like level 25 I want to say. But I will point out I was getting notifications the entire time it launched yesterday around I think 1:00 my time and by the time I was still like closing up playing people were already level 90.

[Greg Miller]

Got it.

[Xanth]

So it's not also impossible to get to the very end. Obviously those are top end players that are pushing unknown strategies to, to be successful. But for the average person you can get in there and you could find yourself at the, the end game relatively quickly. I mean we're talking like five, 10 hours depending on what you happen to be doing and how you're building what have you. The combat itself is pretty fluid as you can kind of see here. We're watching through it looks awesome.

[Greg Miller]

I haven't seen much of it. I know we said at the top as a joke in isometric ARPG looks like an isometric but like the colors and visuals are using are pretty impressive.

[Xanth]

Yeah, it's a little, it retains a little bit more of that kind of wowy kind of gothic, you know, where it's not.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Xanth]

It's not as dark gothic as Path of Exile or as what Diablo 4 was. Was aiming for at the start. It's got like, a little bit more flash, a little bit more pop, a lot more purple. Right. A little bit more green here. Kind of sets it apart by comparison to its peers, but it. It plays really smoothly. I was playing a lot on controller. Controller sport was kind of significantly better than when I had played it initially. They just introduced Wasti as well. If you want to go. If you're an absolute animal and want to use Wasd, it's just. I'm just. It's not intuitive for me.

[Greg Miller]

But controller support, it isn't for anybody. A lot of people have trained themselves to say that it is. It isn't.

[Xanth]

I just don't know how you could. But controller support was really great last night, and I had the. I think one of my favorite feelings in any RPG is like, you start out with a character and then you see somebody else in town or whatever, you're like, oh, that looks kind of cool. I would like to. I want to do that. There's a lot of that capability here in Last Epoch. Barrett, do you want to pull up the Guilt Tree asset? So the last epoch has a really cool skill system. Essentially, you can choose any skill that your character would. Would earn, and you get a tree for each skill. So as you're leveling, you're. You're getting points along the way and. And you get to branch it out and affect how the skill actually works. So we see here the. The little introduction. I cut this video last night on my little Necromancer that was starting out. So as you level, you're getting access to new skills, and then you can go in and specialize in those. So up at the top there, you see level 4, 8, 20, 35 and 50. I can grab one of those skills from there, assign it, and then it starts earning points. It's all really intuitive. Once you kind of get going, eventually I will click on something. Oh, there we go.

[Greg Miller]

You're just shopping now, right?

[Xanth]

So there is the skill tree. And as you're kind of branching out, each one of those little nodes will change the skill itself to do something. Now, you're never going to get enough points to do all of them, and some of them will run counter to what you might do on one end, but it's just that little bit of control. It's that little bit of being able to make and Shape the character that. That you actually want. So I could have different types of minions. I could have my rip blood, you know, branch out or heal me or whatever else I might need. But you get a lot of that kind of control, and then you can couple it up with, you know, there are different items that will go and change the skills as well. But it's just. It's a fun skill system where I'm not hunting for an upgrade for the skill. I'm choosing how it's going to work.

[Greg Miller]

Gotcha. That's cool. Over here in the chat, you got a 10 and 54 or. Yeah. Love the skill system. Yeah, this is. I'm wrapping my head around it. As I see your B roll run.

[Xanth]

It seems way more complicated than what it actually is. Like, at the end of the day, it's like, hey, what are these skills that I actually really enjoy? Okay. I'm like, rip blood isn't my favorite, so why would I want to specialize in it? Maybe I really want to specialize in minions. Okay, what can I do with those and how can I make them better? After this, I ended up making a sentinel with the goal of becoming probably a paladin. And one of his skills was throw hammer, right? You throw a hammer, it returns to you a classic kind of Diablo paladin. But you spec into one point, and suddenly those hammers now rotate around you. And so. So instead of a straight line, they're going to rotate and spin around. And then you could change that. Maybe it's multiple hammers. Maybe it does more damage. And just that level of control is just so fun. And then the. The sentinel next to me might not care about hammers. They might want to go into a javelin.

[Greg Miller]

Who couldn't care about a hammer Xanth? They gotta care about the hammers.

[Xanth]

You have to. It. It does have this. This really, really cool function to it. I. I think it's one of the. The shining stars of this game is just like, how fun that is. Like, oh, man, that. That school's. That skill is really cool. I want to mess around with it. I want to do something different. And there's so many different options to make that happen that it. None of them really feel bad. But you're also excited to try something new and, like, you know, you kind of can be rewarded for that. And then there's more skills to mess with along the way. It's very fun. If you're intimidated, I don't think you need to be because like I said, there's no real wrong choice. You can get through all the content, making bad decisions and be totally fine.

[Greg Miller]

Nitrogen mustard in the live chat goes God I love ARPG so much that I ha ha. I can't wait to get home and play this tonight. Greg, you would love this if it came to console. Without a doubt. Again, I'm gonna. You know, we're gonna go to ads here and I'll open up my email and poke the person I asked about the code cause I'm getting a code for this. I'll put it on the Rog Ally X out there Barrett. Especially if the controller. You said controller support is better now, right Zan?

[Xanth]

Yeah, significantly better.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, okay, let me draft an email here everyone and we'll come back and talk more about ARPG April right after we of course remind you that this is the kind of fun if you love what we do, please pick up a kinda funny membership either on patreon.com kindafunny, YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Apple or Spotify $10 gets you all of our shows. That's more than 80amonth ad free and it gets you your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a 15 to 20 minute podcast I call Greg Way. I'm off on Monday so it'll be a rogue way and you'll find out what Roger's been up to. I digress. Right now you're not using your membership benefits, so here's a word from our sponsors.

[Tim]

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[Greg Miller]

And we're back. I'm fighting a sneeze, but it's not gonna win, I'll tell you that right now. Allergies.

[Barrett]

I think it's gonna win.

[Greg Miller]

What? Eventually, yeah, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, it falls, it'll win the battle, but not the eventually catching Zamf. Again. We've been jumping around a bit, and I know I cut you off in the middle of everything going on there for Last Epoch. I know you just jumped in, but what are like the big things they've been promoting with this patch? Like, if people had played it and had. Weren't, weren't, you know, ready, didn't know about this, or weren't coming back, like, what. What did they add to this one? Is it just the A class?

[Xanth]

No. So. And not really a new class. They kind of reworked the Sentinel class, which is what I was talking about before with coming in and tossing hammers around. Really it was more focused on the end game, which is, you know, the. It's the. The crux of every arpg. Like all of them. We will get them through the story, but then how do we keep them. How do we keep them to keep playing over and over again so we don't lose them to another ARPG or whatever it might it might be, or the other myriad of games that. That are out there. So this is more of a rework around that introducing a new faction and really just it. Really what it boils down to is more stuff to do at the end, right? More stuff to play with. And I, like I said, I got to like level 2025 last night. Didn't get a chance to play with all the new fancy stuff. But here's to hoping in the days to come that I will be able to pull myself from all the other ARPGs and get into it. But overall sentiment seems to be pretty high around how it has been going.

[Greg Miller]

So I think that's a big test for all these updates now that you have actual competition with new content. What? Like tonight, when you get the chance today, when you slip away to your treadmill to play games like a psychopath, where will you go? Like, what is speaking to you? Like, I have to get back back and do X, Y and Z.

[Xanth]

Well, unfortunately, because Last epoch does not have console support, the only way I can run on that treadmill has got to be on console. So I will be at least running playing path of exile 2. I think that for me that becomes easier because Like, I'm gonna. I've got a longer run tomorrow. I'll. I'll be on Path of Exile two in the morning, which means.

[Greg Miller]

How long does it run tomorrow?

[Xanth]

22 miles.

[Greg Miller]

You're psycho. He's Psycho Baron. It's awesome.

[Xanth]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Crazy behavior. You know what I mean?

[Xanth]

I'm aware it's. It's an odd thing, but I do about. I'll do about half of that on the treadmill, and I'll do the other half outside, and that treadmill half will be path of exile 2 because it's on console. If Last Epoch was on Console, though. Yeah. I would probably want to stay with what is new and current and kind of hang out and make the. The, the push with those characters. So the really, the only thing Last Epoch doesn't have going for it right now is that lack of a console support. If I had that, I'd be all over it right now. But it does also mean since I know I'm going to get some Path of Exile time in the morning, I can spend some time in Last Epoch tonight. And like, there's that.

[Greg Miller]

Got it. You're gonna bounce it out. You'll make it up, right?

[Xanth]

It'll. It'll be totally fine. And I am very much enjoying my time playing Last Epoch right now. It was a game that, you know, it came out in what, February of. It's on the sheet. I'd have to pull it up, pull.

[Greg Miller]

Up the date, but it was surely February 24, 2024.

[Xanth]

Right. So lots of things happening at that time, lots of different seasons. It went into early access before. I remember playing it before Diablo 4 launched, when it was in its beta stage. So I just had not kind of gone back to it. And so much has changed. The story itself has changed several times over those. You guys looking for an interesting ARPG story? It reminds me a lot of Chrono Trigger where you are bouncing around from different time periods to like, try and prevent calamity. Oh, that sounds cool, right? So like, you get to choose these different time periods and different things are happening.

[Barrett]

Chrono Triggers name. I've got enough games to play.

[Greg Miller]

Could we convince you to play an arpg? Are you against the genre or is it what's. What doesn't work for you with it?

[Barrett]

Time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

Yeah. And it's. It's one of those, like, I know there's like big world and stories and stuff, but if a game is, you know, where there's a lot of grinding and stuff, I want to feel like I'm building to something that's, like, gonna have, like, an emotional payoff for me or something like that. And it's usually just, like, the worlds I'm less into, not so much the game. I'm just not, like, a high fantasy guy. So that's.

[Tim]

Sure.

[Barrett]

And a lot of these, like, ARPGs are a bit more, like, totally fantasy, like, adjacent. So.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, fair enough. Thank you.

[Barrett]

I'll shut up.

[Xanth]

No, no, I think that's. Barrett, I think you bring up, like, an interesting point of, like, a contrast between a JRPG and an ARPG is where the grinding is located. Right. For jrpg, you do a lot of your grinding to get to that penultimate or ultimate battle. And then with an arpg, a lot of the grinding is more at the end, like, you cruise through the story. Right. And now your grinding is for more gear and different upgrades, not to. Not to beat a particular boss for a satisfying conclusion. I guess it's just what. What will drive you. But I. I would say, like, as a Chrono Trigger fan, jump into Last Epoch, play a little bit. You might have this crap.

[Greg Miller]

Daddy in the chat says it's cool because you get to explore the same map, but, like, in five different time periods. Yeah, that sounds fucking rad. I'm on the. I'm on the page now because now I'm not even gonna wait for the code. I'm just gonna buy it, uncover the past, reforge the Future, ascend into one of 15 mastery classes and explore dangerous dungeons, hunt epic loot, craft legendary weapons, and wield the power of over 100 transformative skill trees. Last Epoch is being developed by a team of passionate action RPG enthusiasts. Fuck. This sounds great, right?

[Xanth]

And I mean, you know, if they don't get you back with a code, it is $35.

[Greg Miller]

That's not bad.

[Xanth]

Yeah, it's not. It's not a.

[Greg Miller]

Now that I'm not spending $550 on a Nintendo Switch to, like, I was preparing mentally. This is gamer math. This is free.

[Xanth]

Yeah, you've. You've actually saved so much money already today.

[Greg Miller]

I know, right? I'd be stupid not to buy it, right?

[Xanth]

Definitely would recommend. So $35, and then all these updates from there on out are free, right? This most recent update is free. Last Epoch is kind of following much like what Diablo has done, what Path of Exile has done. The paid cosmetics route. There are different paid cosmetics. They also have skill cosmetics, which are the things that will get me every single time. I care less about the armor that my character wears, but If I can have a fancier fireball, I can have a fancier pets. Yeah, I'm going to buy that. That's right up my alley. But that's where a lot of their monetization is kind of coming from. So you know that initial $35 years ago, you keep getting those updates. But then maybe you get tempted, you get tempted to purchase something, they've earned it.

[Greg Miller]

At that point you feel like, I assume there's a rogue class in here for me.

[Xanth]

Yes, yes there is. So if we're looking at the classes and you're trying to figure out like what do you want? You've got a mage, you've got a rogue, a Primalist, an Acolyte and a Sentinel. The mage will bounce from mage to sorcerer, Spellblade or Runemaster. Rogue would be blade, dancer, marksman and falconer, which I did play a while ago. Right one. That one's actually kind of fun. You get a falcon, it can drop knives on things. It's, it's, it's pretty sweet. Your Primalist, Beastmaster, Druid and Shaman does have a lot of cool druid shapes. You know, your typical bear, but then also like a tree form. Acolyte is a necromancer, Lich and Warlock, and then Sentinel, Paladin, Void Knight and Forge Guard. And this update actually does allow. It used to be locked in like you made that choice. You're like, oh, I'm a rogue, I'm going to become a falconer. And you're like, ah, I, I thought the falcon would be cooler. Too late now I have to make a whole new character they have added in, you know, kind of that respecting of players time. Right. You know what, you can change that if you feel like you do not enjoy that specialization with this new update you can change it, you can go back, you can become, you know, whatever else was kind of catching your eye. So that's a nice little update for those of us who are more strapped for time in the ARPG space that we're not as punished for making a bad decision along the way.

[Greg Miller]

I can't believe I missed this. It's in the their official website. Last Epoch official game site Time travel action rpg. Yeah, I love all those words together.

[Xanth]

You would love it and I think a lot of people would too. There is a lot of traction like on Twitch right now. A lot of like the ARPG space is very cross pollinated, as I kind of said at the front where you know, people bounce a lot. And this is the time in which last Epoch is kind of getting a lot of its flowers. When they had their most recent patch prior to this, there was a lot more other stuff happening, so it didn't really get that attention. Whereas now, like, there's just. There's just hunger. There's hunger in this market to try something new and play with it. And I'm happy to see them finding the level of success that they're having right now.

[Greg Miller]

Love it. So then. So then that brings us to the final action RPG of April, closing it out.

[Xanth]

So then there is the Diablo four of it. All right. And you were on the Diablo podcast not that long ago. We talked a little bit.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody.

[Xanth]

We talked a little bit about this, but in the most recent weeks or so, we got a full road map, we got an idea of what's going to happen with Diablo 4, and we know the most recent season will be happening on April 29th. So up here is the Diablo 4 roadmap. We kind of have a nice little concept of what's going to come for this game. And we had talked not that long ago about what our predictions were for Diablo 5 and what we thought was happening with Diablo 4. As we look here, there's a little bit of sameness. Right now. We're in Belial's Return, which will be April 29th. We're getting boss powers. There's an earnable pet, there's a new IP collab, which I'll talk about in just a second, because they just announced that, and it was not what I was expecting. Then we'll go into Sins of the Horadrum and Infernal Chaos, and all those are going to kind of repeat the same thing that we've seen for a while, which is you're going to start out the game, you're going to have a different power system that you're unlocking through some way, and that'll make your character more powerful in tandem with the regular character and what have you. Did you hear about the new IP collab, though?

[Greg Miller]

I have not heard about it, no.

[Xanth]

So it was just announced today. So it wasn't. This might be more up Barrett's alley, I would assume. Oh, it's SpongeBob.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, it's Persona or SpongeBob.

[Xanth]

No, it is berserk. Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Barrett]

All right, listen, I'm depressed. I'm not that depressed.

[Xanth]

So, you know, Dark Fantasy IP combined with another Dark Fantasy IP makes a lot of sense. Sure. The last major IP they collabed with was World of Warcraft. There were a bunch of different skins for that. But this is a little different. A little. And oh, look at Barrett. Wow, that was so quick.

[Greg Miller]

Johnny on the spot. He's got it.

[Xanth]

Yeah, I'm impressed with that. So we have like a little. For you audio listeners, there's a little Berserk style Diablo cinematic kind of happening here. To announce the partnership. We have our barbarian dressed like guts from Berserk. So it looks pretty cool.

[Greg Miller]

What that actually means, like what the. I was gonna say. Okay. We haven't actually seen the outfits or anything. Right. Okay.

[Xanth]

I. I would. I would hope that it is more than just a paid thing, you know, where it's just. This is on the store drop $40. But if there was earnable stuff within the game, I think that would be great for everybody. Sure, you still have a paid version somewhere, but give everybody a chance to get something along the way to make that collaboration feel like a collaboration and not just a paywall.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I mean, I doubt it. Right. Because they got to pay for the collaboration.

[Xanth]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

I bet they're going to charge you for it. You're not getting nothing for free out there.

[Xanth]

That's 100. True. But this is. As we're looking ahead for the. The end of the month. This has been four months since the. The last Diablo season, and I think it's been long enough. I kind of burned out on the. The most recent season that I'm also kind of chomping at the bit to get back in. Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, talk to me about that, because now that you've taken your foot off the gas, you feel like you're ready to go back.

[Xanth]

Yeah, I think you burn out from everything. Right. You burn out from playing the same kind of games for too long. And it's almost like a palate cleanser in some regards, like jumping from Path of Exile to Last Epoch and then finally to Diablo 4. They're all so similar and yet so very generous. Different. You know, out of all of them, Diablo 4 is the. The fastest paced. Right. It's kind of nice to just jump in and mow through thousands of demons and by having Feel powerful, right. By having like a little bit of a. Like a slower time in Path of Exile and a little bit slower in Last Epoch. I'm looking forward to kind of cruising through. I'm looking forward to kind of coming back and mowing down the hordes of hell pretty, pretty quickly because it is. It is very much its own thing. And while we can critique and say, like, you know, maybe it needs a little bit more of that. That challenge. It is somewhat refreshing by comparison. And, like, you can kind of appreciate it in that regard. And there's no cost to entry at this point. I've already bought the expansion. You know, the season's free. It does mean no good to sit on the fence. I should. I should hop in and get a taste for it. So we're getting boss powers, plus you.

[Greg Miller]

Host the Diablo podcast. Podcast. So it's kind of.

[Xanth]

Yeah. It'd be really hard to talk about something I'm not playing.

[Greg Miller]

I just couldn't do it, guys.

[Xanth]

I didn't want to. We'll wrap it up, we'll close the show. That's kind of how it works. But I have said for years, like, with hosting the Diablo podcast, if it's ever not fun, I won't do it anymore. But it's always fun. Like, I think keeping a level head about these kind of things and not becoming too obsessive, which I know is weird because I host a podcast, but.

[Greg Miller]

Playing on the treadmill. Can't stop. But yeah, not too obsessive.

[Xanth]

Not too obsessive. It's still not my job. I think, like, that's the biggest thing. It's not my job.

[Greg Miller]

Gotcha. It's still your passion. That's awesome.

[Xanth]

I'm not. I'm not reliant on it, so it is. It's much more fun that way. It's fun when I'm just getting together, talking with friends about video games. Like, that's. That's exciting. But, you know, we're getting these boss powers, which all look kind of exciting. I'm. I'm intrigued to mess around with it. And really what we have is about the last time we saw everything was about a month ago. They did a PTR and a public test. Realm is always kind of a show. It. It's all the bugs coming to light. You get to see broken stuff. And what we're going to get in about a week is they. They'll do a campfire chat and they will discuss what this season actually will be. And they'll. They'll put it out there. They'll have refined all those broken bugs. There's always going to be something. There's always something that gets broken, but it'll be a little bit cleaner. And then we'll get to jump in on the. On the 29th. So it's like, get all the last epoch in you can, because then on the 29th, you need to jump in to Diablo and start cruising there. Probably playing around with those new Berserk outfits because I'm gonna get suckered in. I know it. I know myself.

[Greg Miller]

I feel like the one thing we're talking about with all these is that even though it's a jam packed April, the best month ever for an ARPG fan, there's still a fair amount of time between each one of these where yeah, like you're saying like you aren't even by any stretch of the imagination done with the path of Exile 2 stuff to really get into Last Epoch. But it is this idea that they're giving you time to really get in there, taste it and figure out then which one of these, this Neapolitan ice cream you've been given here of arpgs you want to stick with and go go forward with.

[Xanth]

Yeah, it. Well, actually, sadly, Last Epoch was going to launch right around when path of exile 2 was launching its update and they pushed it by about two weeks just to give that breathing room, which was probably the best choices if memory serves.

[Greg Miller]

I saw them put a message out about it right where they were like, hey, one of our other ARPG friends is putting out an update, so we're gonna move.

[Xanth]

Right. Right. Which was a good call on their part. Like, I think that's the challenge for all three of these studio Forward is it's not like they talk like they're not. There's no special discord for all of them to get together. I'm like, hey, when are you going to release? So they don't step on each other's toes. But it, I think like a two, three week window is usually the, the best. That's enough time to get in there. It's enough time to play through a campaign and get your hooks into whatever the end game happens to be and maybe work out whatever, you know, challenge you had kind of set for yourself and then jump onto the next one and the next one. And then for those who are like really the genre, like myself, like I need three months, I need like I've.

[Greg Miller]

Got like I need to live here, right.

[Xanth]

I got like four or five different characters I want to be able to take to different levels of power and, and challenges I want to set for myself. And that extends it always for me. Like that is where my extension always comes from. But for the, your average player a week, two weeks to kind of go in, mess around, that that's totally fine. And I think it will serve all these games really well to kind of respect that space because you can't do both at the same time. It's impossible.

[Greg Miller]

Before we wrap up, get out of here. You've done a great job recapping all this and telling us what's happening. Thank you. Can you give us at Kinda funny, a read on the Pulse of Diablo 4? I feel like I was the torchbearer. I've talked about it, but as I've said multiple times in all of our podcasts, like, I just burned myself out platinuming it, doing the expansion story three different times. And then so I've just stopped talking about it and I glance at the updates. Obviously I'm still following along, but I'm not talking about it. What is the general community right now? Because it does seem like for me, somebody reading the Rod interviews or seeing these headlines that there's been a bit of a. They're trying to course correct where, you know, we're talking about this being, oh, it's so easy and you just murder everything and do the thing. And I've seen the comments from them of, well, we want to go back to trying to be a bit harder. Is that accurate?

[Xanth]

Yeah, I think there is a little bit of that course correction that should be coming in the most recent Update on the 29th. I think in some ways it, it's a conflicted game. It's very reactionary from time to time of like, okay, it's, it's blast, blast, blast. And that's like, well, we're going too fast. Like, let's, let's crunch those numbers. Let's bring it back to being more difficult. But then somebody else discovers something that's more blast, blast, blast. And it's really kind of tough to balance in terms of, like, general sentiment. I think two years in, it's like appreciating Diablo 4 for what it is and maybe tempering expectations about what it will be like. Seasons themselves don't seem to be as game changing as what maybe we initially had hoped it would be. As we're seeing the, the recycled power system kind of come back continuously, we're not getting as many skill changes or paragon board systems or anything like that, that that's shifting up the way the game's kind of been played. And yeah, there's a little bit of stagnation that, that kind of creeps in when, when you know it's going to be the. The same kind of thing, but maybe in a different color paint. And yeah, that, that can, that can have things kind of die down a little bit in terms of excitement. There still is another expansion that's on the horizon. I mean, I know that's on the roadmap for 2026. But. But when in 2026, when does that happen? We know Blizzcon is in September of 2026. That feels too late. That feels way too late to be announcing an expansion, as I think that's where big changes happen, right? That an expansion for Diablo is when the big changes happen. It's not like Path of Exile where each season is a big change, or even in Last Epoch where they're. They're doing a little bit more changes on their seasons. It seems to fall on these expansions and. And I think people are hungry for that. There was a lot of the story itself in the vessel of hatred for Diablo was fine, but it left on such a huge cliffhanger. People wanted to fight Mephisto. People like the real Mephisto, right? People wanted that. I think the longer it goes where we don't have that, the more that sentiment just kind of builds up. So I'm hoping early 2026 is when we're seeing it, because again, going too long feels dangerous. It feels like, again, working best interest.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Xanth]

Like we want to get in. We want to play a paladin. We want to toss some hammers around. We want. We want all of them.

[Greg Miller]

Gotta toss the hammers. We love the hammers.

[Xanth]

And without it, yeah, we're. We're running into dangerous territory, especially as the competition is. Is amping up. Last Epoch and Path Exile aren't going anywhere. And then there's just other games. There are other games that are going to be competing against all of these ARPGs, and if it's not big enough and different enough, then, yeah, you're not going to come back for that next season.

[Greg Miller]

Final question for you. I think the landscape here of ARPGs, right, obviously this month is banger. That's amazing. Where's your head at? Because one of the comments early on in the show was, man, I used to love ARPGs, but now that everything's moved to being an always online games as a service, it's kind of taken the fun out of it for me as we talk about Diablo right here and the length of time until this next expansion. All these seasons here, which are doing things, but not doing things, people that really want or maybe aren't game changing. Do you think that's worked against the genre? The fact that people have really leaned in on? Okay, well, let's always be online. Let's do updates. Let's do this, let's do that.

[Xanth]

That's a good Question. I mean like first we go back and we look at, we look at. Are we high fiving?

[Greg Miller]

I was trying to high five Barrett, but he was looking at his phone. He didn't hear the question.

[Barrett]

I was, I was looking at the replies to my Blue sky post earlier about needing to fart in an Uber.

[Greg Miller]

Missed that one. Missed that one.

[Xanth]

I did see that one actually. So coming back, happy to report I.

[Barrett]

Did not fart in that Uber.

[Xanth]

I mean you could.

[Greg Miller]

You'Re paying for the time, right?

[Xanth]

I, I, I don't think he would have been the first one to fart in the Uber. Like I don't think they would have said anything. But I digress. Going back to the, the all always online, yet your absolute banger of a question. It like Last Epoch, you know, kind of coming back to it, it has that offline option I think that is, you know, maybe something to kind of push the genre in a different direction. I think them being a small independent studio helps that where they can kind of push out and if these things catch fire and more people are enjoying that, then maybe we do see ARPG shift into having that as an option. Diablo 2 had an, you know, an offline mode and that, that's considered the basic pinnacle of the, of the genre.

[Greg Miller]

The genre.

[Xanth]

Yeah, that helps it, it helps, you know, being able to add in mods and for people to play around with the game. So it could be cool to see. I'm, I've never had a huge issue with it. I've always been content to be online with it. But having like the, the nicety of like Path of Exile, you got the pause feature built in. That is a lifesaver.

[Greg Miller]

Love it.

[Xanth]

Like we're dads. Life happens. We need to pause.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I can't do that.

[Xanth]

Anything else? I can't quick open a town portal all the time. I need to pause, I need to pause right now, but I would love to see that kind of move forward. I think being able to kind of take yourself offline from time to time in an ARPG is, is phenomenal. And the, the push for continual live services is tougher. I get it it. I, I think Path of Exile system as opposed to a battle pass is still to me the, the easiest one. Same with Last Epoch. Here are a bunch of skins. You're gonna look real awesome. You don't have to buy them but like this is how we're gonna make our money. So you could, you could purchase a few things. Diablo's Battle Pass. I, I rarely. We were talking about it the other day. I rarely use anything from it. I get the battle pass every season, but I'm never decked out in it. It's always kind of the same thing.

[Greg Miller]

Crazy.

[Xanth]

So crazy.

[Greg Miller]

I love chasing that battle pass in Diablo. Granted, like, you know, right now, burned out, I'm not doing it. But, like, there was a couple seasons there where I was like, oh, that's cool. And that's cool. I like this whole set. So I will. I'm excited to do this. I'd be playing no matter what.

[Xanth]

Right. I play a druid, though. So typically the druid, the cosmetics don't show up anyway because you're in a bear form or werewolf form. It doesn't matter as much. But do it. Yeah, I get some of the appeal, but for me, it's never been. It's never been about those chasing a skin or anything like that. It's. It's more chasing whatever arbitrary challenge I've. I've ended up setting for myself. And like I said, you know, path of exile 2, I'm still chasing that last epoch now I've got that chase and then I'll be starting up another one at the end of the month. And I have no idea where I will find success, but I'm having fun doing it. I think. I think everybody else will be too. I'm excited to hear. I would hope they get back to you guys. Greg. And shoot you a code.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, they did. I'm good.

[Xanth]

I got it.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, we're done. We download it. We're set to go.

[Xanth]

Well, that was quick.

[Greg Miller]

Now. Now it's like I gotta. I gotta grind through. I gotta burn through the monster hunter wilds obsession that I have. Just get that satiated enough to be able to play something else. Because here's what my life is. It's. I was gonna just wilds it up all weekend long, of course, then be ready for a shadow drop of oblivion next week to then move over to that. Now if that doesn't happen, big gap there. We get some epoch going in there. But it'll probably just be more wilds. I got more things. But then I'm getting on the plane for packs and that's when I need the Rog Ally set to go. And I was gonna play. I thought there while I still will. That's when I'll start outer worlds again to get ready for the. We're reviewing that at the end, but somewhere in there, I will find a place to try epoch. Maybe today.

[Barrett]

In no way you're gonna put any signi if Oblivion is real next week, there's no way you're putting any significant time into it.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, into Oblivion?

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You think so?

[Barrett]

I think you'll play an hour. You'll be like, this looks. This looks very pretty.

[Greg Miller]

Old game is old, though. Did you play Oblivion back in the day?

[Xanth]

No.

[Greg Miller]

See, that's my thing is it's such a. It's such a blind spot for me that I don't even know what the old game is. Old thing that'll turn me off about it.

[Barrett]

What is. When did that come out?

[Greg Miller]

Oblivion 2006.

[Barrett]

I was 11 years old.

[Xanth]

I think I was a sophomore in college at that point. Oh, no, I. Oh, crap. I'm actually way older than that. I had graduated college. God.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I was working my first job. I was engaged. I was about to go work at ign.

[Barrett]

My friends and I were still playing like Tony Hawk and SpongeBob SquarePants.

[Greg Miller]

Well, nothing's changed. Xanth, I thank you for your time as always, your ARPG expertise. Before you go, is there anything people need to know about this month of these games that we didn't cover?

[Xanth]

Really? Just choose one and have fun.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Xanth]

My biggest recommendation for anybody who is new to this genre is honestly, start with Last Epoch. I feel like it is so approachable and then it allows for a nice branch to one or the other. If you find yourself like, oh, I want to go zoom, zoom fast. Bounce on over to Diablo 4. If you're like, oh, I want this. This is fun, but I want just a little bit more of a challenge. Then jump on into Path of Exile. And honestly, there's no wrong choice. You don't have to play all three, but you might find yourself kind of chasing. Chasing the dragon of the ARPG awesomeness that they all offer and getting sucked in.

[Greg Miller]

I love it. Xanth, where can people keep up with you?

[Xanth]

Predominantly just Blue Sky HD Xanth and the Diablo podcast on Spotify and Apple.

[Greg Miller]

I love it. Thank you for your time. I hope you have a lovely weekend. I hope you have a good time running 22 miles.

[Xanth]

Yeah, it'll be a great time. It'll be a great time.

[Greg Miller]

Good. Everybody else, whether you're watching or listening, I hope you have a lovely weekend as well. Of course, if you're watching live on Twitch TV, kindafunnygames or YouTube.com kindafunny, your day is far from over. We go from here to Kinda Funny game showdown. We go from there to the kinda funny podcast. We go from there to a stream of maybe rematch maybe something else. Bear's just shrugging. Maybe they'll play spongebob. Of course, if you're listening or watching later, thank you. Like, subscribe Share Consider picking up the Kinda Funny membership. Of course, $10 gets you all of our shows ad free and the ability to get my exclusive daily podcast Greg Way, YouTube.com kinda funnygames patreon.com kindafunny, Apple and Spotify. No matter where you get the show, thank you for your support and until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve.