[Top 10] Games Like Path of Exile (Games Better Than Path of Exile In Their Own Way)

Updated:

26 Aug 2022

[Top 10] Games Like Path of Exile (Games Better Than Path of Exile In Their Own Way)

ARPG is a gaming genre that attracts all sorts of people, and in it, there are two ‘giants’. Path of Exile and Diablo. While most try to emulate Diablo to a certain extent, some, the best ones, take what’s good from both games and make it better, more unique. And here’s a list of ten of the best ARPGs

10 – Diablo Immortal - Mobile

The notorious and infamous Diablo Immortal, immortalized by the best joke ever made by a fan, the ‘Is this an out-of-season April fool’s joke?’. While extremely unpopular, due to the way Blizzard handled the reveal of this game, as well as the high expectations for Diablo 4’s release, this game faced a lot of criticism even before its release, and now that it’s out, people are not pulling punches.

The game itself has quite a bit of gameplay to it, with a lot of content to go through, but it is essentially a Diablo III re-skin, with massively predatory monetization systems, where you can pay for progress, with streamers and YouTubers paying over 50,000 dollars without getting the item they wanted, because of how the layers of monetization schemes of the game work.

It also was released with a slew of bugs and issues, which did not help anyone’s opinions about it.

Overall, if you don’t mind paying exorbitant fees just to play a pay-to-win game, and you enjoy mobile games, you might enjoy this one. I certainly didn’t.

9 – Path of Diablo - PC

The lovechild of Diablo 2 and Path of Exile, PoD takes the best of both games and mashes it together into a cohesive and refreshing game. It’s actually a Diablo II mod, but with several mechanics and ideas pulled from Path of Exile.

Things like loot filters, which can vastly improve your gameplay, auto party finding, and over 25 servers to connect to, throughout the world. It also has a better stash inventory size, while also giving you a charms inventory, which makes it a lot easier to loot items without massive micromanaging.

It also introduced a character’s page that shows you all your resistances, movement speed, damage, etc. It also has easy muling of items between characters.

There’s also a global chat to talk to anyone in the server, and most interestingly, it has a trading website, in PoB’s website, for easier trading.

And the best QoL, PoB has absolutely no botting. Nothing to screw up the in-game economy with botters.

8 – Torchlight II - Xbox, PS, PC, Switch

Made from ex-Diablo Devs, Torchlight II is a thoroughly addicting game, with a ton of content to play through. It’s simple to just pick up and play without a massive learning curve.

With cute and unique graphics, delightful gameplay, simple, refined, and polished, Torchlight II will scratch that aRPG itch that you have.

It has a simple story, with a regular narrative, while the main focus of the game is definitely on the enemies of the zones you traverse through. From deserts to pirate caves, you have a plethora of environments to explore and discover.

Torchlight has four classes, Embermage, Outlander, Engineer and the Berserker. The Engineer is a melee-based class that summons constructs to help him in battle. The Outlander uses a variety of ranged weapons like guns and bows to rain down bullets from afar. The Berzerker not only is a strong melee character, but he can also summon animals to aid him in combat, while the Embermage is the spell caster of the group.

But not only that, each class have a lot of specialization built-in that you can discover or progress, based on the preference of your combat style. It’s a fantastic game to lose yourself in for hours upon hours!

7 – The Ascent – PC, Xbox

This different and unique ARPG, with a really cool cyberpunk aesthetic, The Ascent has an explosive combat system where its main focus is gunning down enemies from afar, almost in a shooter style, but totally 3D asymmetric.

You can play solo, online or even couch play coop. There are no pre-defined classes, but you can customize your characters in any way you want.

The game’s story is set in the future, where the main character used to be a regular working bee who decides, for one reason or another, to come after the corporations that have been screwing the world.

The most shocking thing is that this game was developed by only 12 people!

6 – Diablo 3 – PC, OS X, PS4, Switch, Xbox

Really fun game to pick up and play for casual players, though it is a grind fest, especially later on. It has a fantastic story to play along with, and though it is an old game, it has great graphics, especially for consoles, and the QoL of the game is superb.

The gameplay is fluid, great for party play and you can play any class in the game and experiment a lot.

It also has seasons which reset your characters, to have a fresh economy as well as special rewards. It’s a great way to keep playing and trying new things. You also have weekly challenges for special seasonal rewards.

Diablo has several modes, like Story mode, Adventure Mode, which has Bounties, regular Rifts, and the Greater Rifts offer a lot of endgame arenas for you to farm to your heart’s content.

5 – Grim Dawn – PC, Xbox

One of the best aRPGs since Diablo II, Grim Dawn is the other side of the coin of PoE for Diablo. Whereas PoE is a lot quicker-paced and much more complex, Grim Dawn does a fantastic job of being interesting, deep, difficult and a lot grittier.

One of the big issues with PoE is just how big the learning curve to play it has, and Grim Dawn reduced that complexity in a palatable way for new players, while still retaining a ton of complexity.

From unique skill trees to devotions, you can also pick a second class and mix and match to fully customize your play through.

One completely new thing in Grim Dawn, the game is not procedurally generated, and every zone you’re in has been handcrafted, which is delightful for exploring and finding secrets and Easter eggs, that reward you for having a keen eye and finding fantastical treasures!

4 – Chronicon – PC

One of the most fun games I played in the past 5 years, Chronicon took me by surprise at the level of customization and freedom you have in the game. Some might think that the graphics are too outdated, but not only is it part of its charm, but the aesthetic of the game is also so pleasing to see that it works perfectly with both the storyline as well as the fluid and dynamic gameplay.

You have four basic characters to pick from, Berserker, Templar, Warden and Warlock. While at first it looks like a cookie cutter class selection, each class has 4 main branches of skill types that you can specialize in, and it makes it so your characters feel and play completely different from one another. And if you get some special legendary set items, it enables other builds to work, builds you could never even imagine working the way they do at first glance.

Do you want to have a giant miasma kill everything on the screen with a single button press? Or perhaps cosplay Thor and jump with lightning and kill enemies on impact? Or even become a veritable hedgehog that reflects any damage you take multiplied by the power of the sun? All of that and more is possible with the level of customization each class offers.

As for endgame, there’s something called Anomalies, which are RNG levels with varied types of difficulty and challenges. From Dungeon Anomalies to Endless Anomaly, you’ll more than get your bang for your buck!

3 – Last Epoch - PC

Yet another game that took inspiration from Path of Exile and Diablo, Last Epoch managed to grab some of the best features and systems and made them a lot more accessible for regular players who either can’t or don’t enjoy the same level of complexity those games have but still retaining a lot of depth and difficulty throughout the game.

With slick graphics, fluid animations, and enjoyable gameplay, Last Epoch is only getting better and better, especially as the game is now on its road to releasing multiplayer and trading, which is one of the most interesting and important aspects of any ARPGs.

Boasting over 100 skill trees, one for each skill, and 15 mastery classes to further your characters, this wonderful game has all the tools to take the ARPG genre by its horn and rise above the muck, and perhaps even out stage some of the big boys, like Diablo and PoE.

It is an amazing game that truly is worth the $35 ticket of entry.

2 – Lost Ark - PC

The core gameplay is fantastic, with just enough skill ceiling and skill floor that even a noob can play well, but a true master can take over the arenas.

It also boasts fantastic graphics for an Unreal Engine 4 game, from an asymmetric point of view.

It has so many endgame progression systems, worth thousands of hours of gameplay and cool things, both for power and cosmetics.

You can upgrade strongholds, boats, and pets, and create a relationship with NPCs, as well as in-game skins.

The game also focuses a lot on PVP and GvG, besides its amazing PvE boss fights.

While it has its drawbacks (loot boxes), it’s one of the best aRPGs of this decade already, and likely will remain so for many years to come.

1 – Hades – PC, macOS, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox

Probably one of the best games made in this century, Hades has everything. Fantastic characters, great storyline, perfect soundtrack, and I didn’t even start talking about the gameplay itself.

It’s one of the most difficult, fluid, aesthetically pleasing games I’ve ever had the pleasure to play, with an asymmetric top-down camera, rogue-like hack-n-slash gameplay, with a ton of aRPG elements for progression and ‘endgame’.

You have a plethora of weapons, spells, divine blessings and boons to customize each and every run you do, and no run is ever the same since you have to deal with the RNG aspect of the game.

As for endgame, you can optimize the game to be further punitive against you, so you can test yourself against the harshest of adversities in the form of Heat levels.

It’s probably my third favourite game of all time, and not just because you can pet Cerberus non-stop!