Path of Exile

The game was started by a handful of genre fans who were tired of waiting for new releases. Grinding Gear Games worked quietly for three years before announcing it in September 2010. Players paid to get into the closed beta, and by January 2013 they had chipped in 2.2 million dollars. The open beta that same month launched free, with microtransactions mostly for looks.

The studio never made coins for trading between players. Players swap special items that are useful in their own right, some raise an item's rarity, others reroll its stats. Spent currency is gone for good, which keeps inflation in check.

In 2013 GameSpot named it PC Game of the Year. One reviewer felt the game is unfriendly to newcomers and gives little direction. Players leave 89% positive out of 250,322 reviews, critics give it 86 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #336 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try Grim Dawn, built on the engine of Titan Quest, one of the games the makers of Path of Exile looked to, and Last Epoch, an action RPG about traveling through time.