Last Epoch review

Our VerdictWith its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

Our Verdict

With its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

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NEED TO KNOWWhat is it?A Diablo-like action RPG with an emphasis on items.Expect to pay: $35/£30Developer: Eleventh Hour GamesPublisher:Eleventh Hour GamesReviewed on: Windows 11, Intel Core i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 4060Multiplayer?YesLink:Official site

NEED TO KNOW

What is it?A Diablo-like action RPG with an emphasis on items.Expect to pay: $35/£30Developer: Eleventh Hour GamesPublisher:Eleventh Hour GamesReviewed on: Windows 11, Intel Core i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 4060Multiplayer?YesLink:Official site

The first thing most people hear about Last Epoch is that it’s an action RPG with a clever trading system. And that’s true, it does have smart mechanics for bartering gear and ranking up your affiliation with the Merchant’s Guild to equip better purchased goods, which prevents you from making some canny deals and immediately walking off in endgame armor. But the thing that’s really clever is that you can opt out entirely.

As someone who could not care less about auction houses in RPGs, this is ideal. I’m not here to play the medieval stock market, and feeling forced into one to keep up in a game like Lost Ark sucks. Last Epoch’s approach to trading is smart, and it’s one of many smart decisions it makes about items. Another is the loot filter, which doesn’t just let you make common-rarity gear invisible beyond a certain point, but lets you get real fine-grained about which gear affixes you care about and want to see or not see when piles of stuff pinata out of the last spiky rat or gross bird you killed.

Crafting is another system with more thought than usual put into it. You can upgrade the bonuses gear has, add new ones, or remove them. The limits are each item’s “forging potential” and whether you have enough affix shards for the relevant bonuses. If you’re not hitting hard enough, you up a piece of gear’s damage bonus, and if you want some more poison resistance you add that. It’s straightforward, and lets you do what you want to your gear without hassle.

These good ideas are emblematic of a game designed with a lot of community feedback over the course of its time in early access. Last Epoch’s the kind of game that goes out of its way to fix things that annoy people when they’re playing a Diablo or a Path of Exile. If you find Diablo too simple and Path of Exile too complicated, Last Epoch has successfully carved out a niche between the two. I just wish some of the effort that went into the crafting had gone into the combat.

(Image credit: Eleventh Hour)

A rogue shoots a glowing magic arrow

Slay a while

(Image credit: Eleventh Hour)

A primalist swings an axe at quill hogs

Last Epoch only lets you map five abilities at a time, which seems limiting at first. Even more than other action RPGs, it really wants you to stick to the same handful of powers. As you level up you can specialize in skills, though not many of them, and discover that each one has a node of unlockable options to enhance or reflavor it. Want to add some poison damage, or a cheeky backflip? Want to swap fire damage for ice, or a chance to stun? There are plenty of choices, but you only earn points for an ability’s internal skill tree while you’re specialized in it. Respec and you have to start over with a handful of points, which encourages sticking with the same ones as much as possible. You choose a damaging attack, a movement skill, and some kind of crowd-control ability and can then pretty much ignore everything else on your list because they won’t be getting a look-in.

Time is a construct

The thing I expect an action RPG to skimp on is the story, and Last Epoch doesn’t break the mold in that respect. There’s a powerful artifact called the Epoch and if you already guessed it was going to be split into shards that need collecting you win this week’s edition of Fantasy Nonsense Bingo.

The Epoch makes time travel possible, which lets you revisit areas at different periods, like a brightly lit jungle full of dinosaurs or the ruins of a fallen empire, and sets up an endgame of redoing quests in alternate timelines where they involve different enemies and various modifiers. It’s all a bit Chrono Trigger and—even as someone who normally pays attention to narrative and despairs when other players admit they don’t follow it—I completely tuned it out in the opening hours.

(Image credit: Eleventh Hour)

Crafting upgrades on a pair of boots

The focus is clearly on the item mechanics, which means that loot hounds and build theorycrafters will have a great time poring over the difference between a bonus to Critical Strike Chance and a bonus to Increased Critical Strike Chance, or whether it’s better to have a quiver with Increased Stun Chance or one with Increased Bow Stun Chance. If you come to action RPGs for the action, however, you’ll find Last Epoch lacking.

The Verdict60Read our review policyLast EpochWith its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

The Verdict

60Read our review policyLast EpochWith its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

60Read our review policy

Last EpochWith its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

Last Epoch

With its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

More about last epochLast Epoch cracks down on item duplicates and gold exploit: ‘We don’t think it’s a very controversial statement to say that abusing an exploit, ruining the game for all players is not acceptable, and that doing so should result in a ban’Last Epoch players help judge what overpowered builds will be on the chopping block for its next major patchLatestHarrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us RemakeSee more latest►

More about last epoch

Last Epoch cracks down on item duplicates and gold exploit: ‘We don’t think it’s a very controversial statement to say that abusing an exploit, ruining the game for all players is not acceptable, and that doing so should result in a ban’Last Epoch players help judge what overpowered builds will be on the chopping block for its next major patch

Last Epoch key art with five characters representing each class standing in front of a portal

A mystical being holds a magical artifact

Last Epoch players help judge what overpowered builds will be on the chopping block for its next major patch

LatestHarrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us RemakeSee more latest►

Latest

Harrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us Remake

The dual protagonists of Assassins Creed Shadows stand silhouetted against a setting sun.

Harrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us Remake

See more latest►

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Our Verdict#

Slay a while#

Time is a construct#

Our Verdict

Slay a while

Time is a construct