Last Epoch hasn’t even been officially released yet, but it’s already garnering tons of recommendations in Early Access. The developers are showing the new update at gamescom, with one of the most exciting classes in the genre.
What kind of game is this? Last Epoch is a classic ARPG, so it ranks right next to Diablo, Path of Exile, Wolcen and Co. You play one of a total of 15 classes from the iso perspective and slaughter your way through hordes of opponents to get better and better loot.
What is special about the title is the time travel mechanism that gives it its name. As you progress through the story, you change the timeline several times, which gives the developers a lot of freedom in shaping the world. In addition to the dark areas that are usual for the genre, there are also now and then colorful excursions into the fauna.
Furthermore, Last Epoch trumps depth in its skill system without becoming unnecessarily complicated. Nevertheless, each ability has its own skill tree and can be adjusted and even fundamentally changed in up to 20 nodes.
Last Epoch: The trailer for the action RPG
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The new Runemaster can cast 40 different spells with just one button
What’s new now? The developers of Eleventh Hour Games announced the big patch 0.9.2 at gamescom. The game will remain in Early Access, but will be massively expanded with the update.
In addition to numerous new monsters, items and a completely new map mechanism, the studio is also bringing out a localization in 8 other languages and yes, German is one of them. Previously, the game was only playable in English.
The big highlight, however, is the Runemaster class. It is an expansion of the base mage class and can be accessed after around 10 to 15 hours of play. The magician who forges magic is strongly reminiscent of the game Magicka, which the CEO of the studio also mentions as inspiration in an interview.
What can the Runemaster do? If you’ve played magicka, you should be familiar with the principle. But for everyone else, a brief explanation. The Runemaster has access to skills from three different elements: Fire, Lightning, and Ice.
Each skill leaves a rune of the respective element above you, you can stack up to three of them. Depending on the order in which you combine the various element runes, a different ability will result. So ice, lightning and lightning becomes a different skill than lightning, ice and lightning.
But it goes even deeper than that. With the different nodes in your skills, you can choose and customize the elements of each individual skill. There are also spells that are stronger if you keep the runes instead of spending them.
The whole system of the Runemaster looks very well thought out and fun. It has the depth needed to accommodate variety and builds, but never gets too complicated to offer a good class even for beginners.
The developers themselves say of their creation: “The Runemaster offers more options and diversity in one ability alone than some ARPGs have in a full class”. By the way, you can put it to the test yourself from September 7th. Patch 0.9.2 appears as one of the last before the final release, which is planned for the end of 2023.
Last Epoch comes from fans, for fans: we are literally the community
Why is the game such an insider tip? Last Epoch has been in Early Access on Steam since 2019, but hasn’t made the big breakthrough yet. Nevertheless, the game is very well received by the people who try it. Currently, 84% of the 19,290 reviews are positive, and a multiplayer patch was even able to increase the number of players by over 4,000%.
The founder of the game also tells us in an interview why this is so. Because Last Epoch was born out of an idea that came to him while gambling. He himself says he has put well over 10,000 hours into various ARPGs, but none have completely satisfied him. So he founded the project on reddit and looked for like-minded people in the communities.
Within a short time, 8 more people were found developing Last Epoch in their free time after work. Hence the name of the studio, Eleventh Hour Games, derived.
How does being a fan make itself felt? Did we ask? As an example, he cites his own skill tree, which is available for every single skill in the game. He explains that this isn’t something other games would do and it was way too much work. But the community wanted this feature and they would have wanted it themselves because they are fans of the genre: we are literally the community.
Have you played Last Epoch yourself? What do you think about the idea? And what do you think of the Runemaster as a new class? Write it to us in the comments here at MeinMMO.
Our editor Benedict Grothaus was already enthusiastic about the title in March: A small ARPG on Steam is just the perfect game if you’re waiting for Diablo 4