Action role-playing game Path of Exile 2 is about to get a significant performance boost on all platforms – one that, apparently, will be especially noticeable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.
The boost comes from a change in the game’s code to allow it to utilise multiple CPU cores better, developer Grinding Gear Games explained in a press presentation for the game that I attended.
“The primary issue is CPU load,” co-game director Mark Roberts said, “and to address that a lot of things have been optimised, and we have done a lot of work to take advantage of more of your CPU cores. You should see frame-rates at least 25 percent higher, and a lot less bad frame spikes during gameplay. It does make quite a big difference, especially on consoles.”
That 25 percent estimate, however, is an understatement, as I found out while talking to the other game director, Jonathan Rogers, in an interview following the presentation.
“The reason why we mentioned consoles specifically is that they tend to have slower CPUs generally,” Rogers said, “which means that on console, you are more likely to run into performance problems at endgame compared to players with PCs. And of course on a console, the hardware is the hardware: you can’t upgrade it. You can’t do anything about it. It is what it is. So we obviously have to make sure that it’s good enough in any situation. That’s why there was that call-out specifically.
“I would say, if anything, it’s understated. I was willing to commit to 25 percent because I know that we’re definitely hitting that, but honestly, in a lot of situations, it’s straight up double.”
Incidentally, those changes naturally benefit Steam Deck performance as well, and while we’re on the topic of handheld gaming devices, has Grinding Gear Games given any more thought putting the game on Switch 2?
“I haven’t,” answered Rogers. “It’s been suggested to us a few times, but… Look, it’s not like it couldn’t happen. It’s just it’s one of those things where we have a lot to be doing that isn’t that right now, unfortunately. At the end of the day, our engine team is only four people, and we’ve got a lot of platforms to support. It’s one of those things that we can look into once I no longer feel like I’ve got a problem with performance on the other platforms.”
The performance boost will be one of the many game changes coming to Path of Exile 2 on 12th December, as part of a quarterly update. This will bring, notably, a new druid class to the game and a new league (world) with an underground temple you need to piece together yourself, inspired by the indie game of a few years ago, Loop Hero.
But it’s another, smaller, incidental detail – besides the performance boost – that’s likely to appeal far more immediately to the Path of Exile 2 playerbase, and that’s the dispersing of the Delirium fog. The game’s Subreddit is currently covered in memes about this fog, each of which are a variation on ‘I can’t see anything because of it’.
Posts from the pathofexile2
community on Reddit
Thankfully, Grinding Gear Games has heard your fog-muffled cries, and toned it down “significantly”, Rogers said. It’s still there because it’s a fundamental part of going to a Delirium world, but it’s been dramatically altered.
“Part of the reason why it’s an issue is because the game currently has Instilling, and the way that Instilling rewards you effectively meant that it was completely mandatory to use. There is no downside to having it so therefore every map should have it, and therefore every map is just grey fog. So the first thing to do is to straight up remove the requirement to use it,” he said.
“But then there’s still Delirium, the league, that we still want to be a thing. So for that, we can’t really remove the fog entirely, because then Delirium just wouldn’t really be anything at that point – it would just suck. So really, what we need to do is make the fog be a nice experience, so that’s what you can see in the [presentation] video where we changed it very significantly. It’s not nearly the same as it was before. It’s much more fine. So it’s fixed in two ways: it’s not mandatory and when you do get it, it’s way less annoying.”
Path of Exile 2 is currently available in early access on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. A full 1.0 release, which will include all six Acts in the campaign, will likely not happen until later next year.
