Booting up Path of Exile 2 right now is like walking into a half-finished arena where the lights are already on and the fights have started. If you played the first game into the ground, you'll recognise the itch straight away, and you'll probably end up tabbing out to check PoE 2 Items for sale while you're still deciding what to build. It's early access on PC and consoles, so yeah, bits are missing, but the core loop still grabs you and doesn't let go.
Build Planning Is the Real Tutorial
The game doesn't ease you in. You pick a class, you get a few skills, and then the passive tree shows up like a dare. It's massive, and it's not the kind of "press this for 5% more damage" thing you forget about. You'll be plotting routes, second-guessing every node, and saving weird little checkpoints in your head for later respecs. People love that freedom, but it's also where new players bounce off. And with the campaign not fully there yet, the planning ends up being a bigger part of the experience than you'd expect.
Early Access Momentum and the Waiting Game
You can feel the community's patience stretching. Every time a timeline gets mentioned, someone's ready to argue. The devs have admitted it's taking longer than hoped, and that honesty helps, but it doesn't magically make waiting fun. Still, updates land and suddenly the mood shifts. The Druid drop is a good example: it didn't just add another flavour of damage, it brought a style that plays its own way. That's the kind of patch that makes you log in "just to try it" and then lose the evening.
Trading, Tools, and the Little Frictions
Trade is already becoming its own meta, because it always does in PoE. You'll run a few zones, get a rare that looks promising, and then you're doing the usual routine: checking prices, comparing rolls, wondering if you're about to undersell something big. The market tools are helpful, but early access quirks show up fast. Live search limits, clunky filters, odd interface moments—nothing deal-breaking, just enough to slow you down when you're trying to gear for tougher content.
Why It Still Feels Worth Sticking With
The feedback loop is loud and kind of chaotic, and that's part of the charm. Forums are packed with bug reports, salty takes, and genuinely smart build talk, sometimes all in the same thread. You're basically playing and testing at once, and you can tell the game's being shaped in real time. If you do want to smooth out the gearing grind, a lot of players lean on marketplaces for currency and items, and U4GM comes up often for quick delivery and a straightforward checkout when you'd rather spend your time mapping than haggling.
