Last Epoch Review – It’s All Coming Together

Last Epoch on PC

In a time where good ARPG releases are few and far between, Last Epoch is moving out of early access with a 1.0 launch that is redefining what an ARPG launch looks like.

When it comes to the full package, Last Epoch is it. You get a sprawling story, five classes with three mastery classes each, a very approachable, yet deep, crafting system, co-op multiplayer, support for hardcore, and an auction house system. On top of an endgame system that revolves around three bespoke activities, with everything wrapped in impressive, modern graphics.

Such a description doesn’t do the game justice, so let’s break it all down. Without spoiling too much, the story revolves around you traveling through time and visiting a large variety of locations between the Ancient Era of -6020 BE up to the Ruined Era of 1290 AG and even to the End of Time itself that exists outside of all other eras. What I found interesting about the campaign and its locations is that each era has its own unique feel that is born from its lore.

For example, the Divine Era is where you start and is a place of harmony between humans and gods, like a golden age. Then, when you travel to the Imperial Era, you discover that humanity has declined after a powerful undead takes control of power from the gods and uses it to give rise to the Undead Empire. However, less than 300 years later, and this all-powerful force of twisted darkness called “The Void” breaks through the defenses of the Undead Empire and ravages all lands, converting almost every living creature into Void Horrors.

What you do in the story serves to stop these events from happening and it’s quite compelling! I found myself engaged with most quests, and even the animated-still cutscenes after major quests that are reminiscent of Destiny 2’s seasonal cutscenes, are fun to watch and set the stage for what comes next. But what’s a good story and diverse environments if you can’t do anything cool in them? Well, rest assured, the gameplay of Last Epoch is its strong suit.

As I previously mentioned, you’ll get to choose between five classes that can then specialize into one of three mastery classes. Thankfully, every mastery class is distinct from one another, so two Acolytes are unlikely to have highly similar builds—looking at you Diablo 4. This fact is bolstered by every mastery class having its own unique passive skill tree on top of every skill having its own dedicated passive skill tree.

These skill trees aren’t simple +2% damage nodes either. Instead, what you’ll find are a dozen or more nodes that add new properties to the skill, that can also stack with one another, and can be granted a new synergy with another one of your skills. For example, my Falconer Rogue can throw out a few exploding decoys. Because of the skill’s skill trees, my Falcon companion’s Dive Bomb ability triggers an extra powerful explosion if it’s used on those exploding decoys. Synergies like this are abundant across all classes and really help diversify builds and enhance gameplay in ways I wish every other ARPG did.

Ultimately, whether you’re a Mage, Rogue, Primalist, Acolyte, or Sentinel, each class’s 20+ skills means you have that many skill trees to mix and match with all of your loot, idols, and mastery class passive skills. Speaking of loot, you are unlikely to find a better loot system outside of classics like Diablo 2 and Path of Exile—Diablo 4 wishes its loot was this good. That’s because of how weapons can roll with a wide variety of affixes that come in tiers from one to five on loot.

A good example of the difference between tiers is something like ‘added fire damage’ that is around 7% at tier one and near 50% at tier five. The cool thing, though, is that while you can craft and upgrade gear up to tier five affixes, loot can drop with tier six or tier seven affixes with grossly inflated values compared to the first five tiers. Then you have your usual assortment of Unique gear that can’t be crafted on, as well as set items. That said, crafting in Last Epoch is refreshingly deterministic, easy to understand, and doesn’t require dozens of different/rare currencies.

However, those Exalted pieces of gear that drop with tier six or seven affixes can be combined with Uniques to create Legendary pieces of gear where the Exalted affixes are merged onto the Unique itself. It’s one of the coolest ways to make Uniques feel personal and ridiculously powerful and valuable. And you’ll want that powerful loot too, because the latter half of the game’s campaign after level 40 can quickly become quite challenging. That was highly refreshing as it forced me to refine my loot and build, and is much more than just an extended tutorial with story bits.

Speaking of story, you have the main quest which unlocks new regions and eras. Then you have the side quests which reward passive skill points and idols slots, which are a separate space for idols that are much like Diablo 2’s charms, except they don’t take up inventory space. Beyond that though, once you’re past a certain point in the campaign (around level 50), you’ll unlock the endgame, which can be enjoyed before completing the campaign in full.

The endgame is no walk in the park either as you have the Monolith of Fate maps system, Dungeons, and the Arena. The Monolith of Fate is if Path of Exile’s map and delve system had a baby. It’s not quite as fleshed out as PoE’s maps, but it serves as a good starting point for Eleventh Hour Games to build upon.

Beyond the Monolith of Fate are the game’s three dungeons. These dungeons in Last Epoch are actually closer to the dungeons in Destiny 2 in terms of mechanical complexity and difficulty, at least, compared to Diablo 4. Each dungeon has an impressive boss encounter that incorporates the dungeon mechanic you were taught along the way, except, in Last Epoch, you need a key to get into the dungeons each time, and once you die, that’s it, you’ll need another key.

What’s cool is that each dungeon has its own unique reward system. One dungeon allows you to craft the aforementioned Legendary items by smushing together Uniques and Exalteds of the same item type. Another dungeon lets you spend huge amounts of gold to add modifiers to the four large chests you get at the end of the dungeon. From a huge chance at duplicates to guaranteed Uniques, each dungeon has its own distinct reward value.

Then you have the Arena. This endgame activity lets you fight through waves of enemies that ends in an Arena champion boss. But that’s not the best part of the Arena. In fact, what most players love about the Arena is its Endless mode, where you go as far as your build can handle and then you are put on a leardboard with everyone else in the community. Some would say this is the true endgame, and I’m thrilled it’s already in the game.

The 1.0 launch also features a graphics overhaul that adds screen space shadows, ambient occlusion, better lighting, and a variety of new and changing weather effects. The result puts Last Epoch somewhere between Path of Exile and Diablo 4, and that’s fine with me because it also runs well enough on my modest laptop on Very High settings. It’s a shame Last Epoch won’t be launching with DLSS or FSR though. Meanwhile, the music is serviceable and does a decent enough job of matching the environments and boss fights, but only a few tracks stood out to me.

Lastly, is Last Epoch’s solution to trading that was inspired by the game’s community. The devs found the player base was split between having some sort of auction house and being able to find gear on your own with the need to trade. So they ended up devising a solution that serves both camps by creating the Faction system for 1.0. This system divides players based on whether they want to engage in public item trading or receive a buff that enhances the quality and quantity of loot found.

All in all, Last Epoch has grown to become the APRG game for ARPG fans with a very passionate dev team. This can be seen in the moment to moment crunchy gameplay, endless stash tabs, and sort button for every inventory. If you’re a fan of ARPGs, then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from giving this gem a try.

For more like this, check out our review of Helldivers 2!