Last Epoch Officially Leaves Early Access For Full Release
Eleventh Hour Games’ time-traveling action RPG entry, Last Epoch, has been in Early Access since 2018. Finally, the game has reached its 1.0 state this month of February. Steam reviews have praised the game for its easy, accessible class mechanics, yet providing more depth for build customization as playtime progresses. Players have compared this to other contemporary ARPGs, saying that it is more complex than Diablo 4 but simpler than Path of Exile, making it a perfect balance for casual players who want a more accessible experience while simultaneously satisfying more hardcore players who wish to optimize their build fully.
Table of Contents
The Story
Last Epoch is set in the world of Eterra, which spans along multiple time periods. Far into the future, Eterra will be consumed by The Void that corrupts all that come into contact with this dark energy. Travelers must jump through the different eras of Eterra’s history, starting from the Ancient Era, where the world was in its infancy, the Divine Era, where the gods have guided humanity and began to flourish, the Imperial Era, where all of humanity is subjugated under an undead Emperor and the Ruined Era, where the Void will soon end Eterra. Only the most powerful Travelers will face all challenges until the End of Time itself.
Last Epoch Base Classes and Masteries
The game has 5 classes that players can start with. Those would be the Sentinel, Primalist, Rogue, Mage, and Acolyte. From each class comes 3 Mastery classes that specialize in a specific playstyle. As an example, the Sentinel class starts as a purely melee option, but with the Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight masteries, players can choose to turn their melee class into a support class with the Paladin, pure tank with the Forge Guard, and hybrid melee/caster class with the Void Knight, playing into a specific class fantasy that ensures the absolute gameplay identity of their class remains solid.
Unlocking new skills in combat only requires allocating points in the respective Mastery’s passive tree, which will open up the entire skillset. Unlike other ARPGs, Last Epoch does not require you to spend a point to learn a specific skill. Each skill is leveled independently up to 20 and has its own progression system, so there is no need to worry about having a limited amount of class points. You will have enough points for both the passive tree and skill trees which gives you plenty of player power. If you don’t like how your skills are playing out, you may freely respec the points for that skill or despecialize from that skill and choose another to level, all for free,
How Does Combat Work?
Every class in Last Epoch can slot up to 4 skills bound to the Q, W, E, R, and right mouse button keys. While this may seem lacking, what adds to the depth of the game is that every single skill has its own tree with a bevy of passives that completely augment and change the way that one skill works. For example, the Acolyte’s Rip Blood has a passive within its tree that allows it to be cast even without mana, as well as a passive that converts its bleed damage into poison. Another staple skill of theirs, Summon Skeleton, has passives that allow you to summon multiple skeletons in one cast instead of summoning them one by one, resummon another skeleton automatically after one dies, and add a new class of skeleton to the summoning pool. This adds plenty of variety to your 5 skills in the hotbar, making combat always interesting. Respecing can be done on the fly, which allows you to get back into the fight with a new build in tow to keep things fresh.
Item Crafting
Crafting in Last Epoch allows for full control over your item’s prefixes and suffixes by using the appropriate modifier shard. Even better, the crafting menu does not need the services of an enchanter or blacksmith NPC, nor does it require being in the town hub to access it. You can craft items anytime, anywhere, and all crafting materials are stored in a separate, account-bound storage. Crafting starts out simple, For example, if you want an item with an attack speed prefix and a Chance to Burn suffix on an item, you can simply slot in an attack speed shard and Chance to Burn shard in the appropriate slots. However, min-maxers will see that the crafting system can be more complex, as they can place a Glyph and a Rune in the crafting slots. Glyphs will drastically affect the prefix and affix slots by either upgrading them, imbuing the shard into the item or completely re-rolling the slot with another prefix or suffix. Runes, on the other hand, change the crafting process by dismantling an item for its shards, duplicating an item, and even replacing that item with a Unique or Set item. This gives item crafting a surprising amount of depth for players who want to really fine-tune their build while still giving casual players complete control over their itemization.
Endgame Activities
Of course, after completing your ideal build, it’s natural to want to test in the crucible of the end game, testing your build to its absolute limit while getting rewards that continue to spur even more theorycrafting. Last Epoch has 3 different endgame activities so far: The Monoliths of Fate, Endless Arena, and Dungeons.
Dungeons are your usual endgame area fare with high-leveled enemies that drop far better loot than overworld mobs. Each dungeon also provides a unique ability for the hazards in that area. Dungeons function like a roguelike in that further progression in the area is locked out on death but offers rewards not found anywhere else in the game.
The Monoliths of Fate provide a variable challenge with many random modifiers to make each run different and evergreen. Players must navigate through nodes of different timelines, completing a random objective in order to progress to the next node. Each run will provide a blessing that functions as a permanent buff for within and outside the game mode. This activity is a primary source of rare items as each run ends with a final boss that has a unique loot pool tied to that boss, as well as end chests that give loads of rewards like gold, experience, and Arena Keys.
The Endless Arena, as the name implies, is an infinite wave mode that throws increasingly more difficult enemies at you. The goal is to defeat as many waves as possible before you die. This is where builds are tested and the activity that determines your place on the leaderboard and will be the de facto competitive mode for hardcore players.
