Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?

Key art for the Amazon ascendancy class in Path of Exile 2.

Path of Exile 2 has been a polarizing game right from the beginning. Those of us who have sunk an impossible number of hours in the original were used to a certain pace, one that's familiar to players of isometric ARPGs more broadly—blast monsters, collect loot, blast monsters faster.

PoE2's guiding vision has been to slow things down and make combat more engaging, which sounds great in theory, but the disastrous response to its Dawn of the Hunt update reveals that Grinding Gear Games hasn't quite solved this fundamental tension yet.