Last Epoch Review Summary

Fun with excellent crafting, strong build variety, and a best-in-class loot filter, but the endgame gets repetitive and the broken no-paid-content promise sours it.

Super fun and enjoyable: Players consistently describe the game as genuinely fun, fast-paced, and excellent overall. It is considered worth buying and highly entertaining.

Excellent crafting system: Crafting is intuitive, fun, and unique, with a perfect balance of simplicity and depth. Many call it the best crafting system in the ARPG genre.

Strong build variety and customization: Players highlight the huge variety of viable builds, with extensive customization options that allow unique playstyles for each specialization.

Best-in-class loot filter: The built-in loot filter is praised as the best in any ARPG, with deep conditional branches, easy sharing, and intuitive configuration. Many consider it a feature every ARPG should copy.

Deep and creative skill trees: Skill trees are huge, well-designed, and allow complete transformation of abilities. Each skill has its own tree that encourages creative combinations and synergies.

Broken promise of no paid content: Developers had promised that the game would never have paid content, but now they are adding paid DLC and classes. This has led to accusations of lying and breaking trust with the community.

Repetitive and boring endgame: The endgame is large but monotonous, boring, and tedious. Players find it repetitive and grindy, especially in Monoliths.

Lack of endgame content: Players feel there is no proper endgame or that it is lacking and not satisfying enough. There is no sense of progress in the endgame.

Bugs and technical issues: The game is plagued by many bugs, glitches, and non-working mechanics. Some bugs remain unfixed and occur occasionally.

Long gaps between seasons: The time between seasons is considered too long compared to the developers' stated goals. Seasons are released infrequently and with relatively little content.

Endgame content available: The game offers endgame content such as Monoliths of Fate, dungeons, and corruption systems. Players find the endgame progression and difficulty to be substantial, though some note it is limited.

Individual skill trees: Each skill has its own dedicated skill tree that allows players to customize attributes, alter behavior, or auto-trigger other skills. This system enables deep build customization and synergy between abilities.

ARPG with hardcore and seasons: The game is an ARPG with Hardcore mode and seasonal content, offering endgame progression. Seasons provide new content and are a core feature.

ARPG with crafting systems: It is an ARPG featuring inventory management, crafting, and build variety. The crafting system allows item fine-tuning with affixes and prefixes/suffixes, though it may involve some probability.

Detailed loot filter system: The game features a built-in, fully customizable loot filter with many conditions that can be exported and shared. Players appreciate its precision and integration into the UI, which enhances item management.

FPS drops in combat: Frame rates plummet during intense combat, especially with many enemies and effects, often dropping to 30 FPS or lower.

Game runs smoothly for some: A subset of players experience smooth performance without stutters, even in demanding scenes.

Server disconnections and lag: Frequent disconnects, high ping, and server lag disrupt online play, with issues during map transitions and login.

Memory leak issues persist: Players report memory leaks that worsen over time, requiring frequent restarts or causing crashes, with some noting it has become more severe.

Crashes and freezes: Reports of game crashes, freezes, and 'not responding' errors on launch or during gameplay.

Not recommended currently: Reviewers cannot recommend the game in its current state, often citing bugs or unplayable conditions. The issues seem significant enough to withhold recommendation for now.

Strong negative recommendation: Multiple reviewers strongly advise against buying or playing the game, saying it is a pass. This sentiment is widespread across several clusters.

Recommended for Diablo 2 fans: Players who enjoyed Diablo 2 and like building characters highly recommend this game. It appeals to those who enjoy hack-and-slash and build planning.

Recommended overall: Reviewers recommend the game without hesitation, often giving it a 10/10. The sentiment is strongly positive.

Recommended for ARPG fans: ARPG enthusiasts broadly recommend the game, often calling it the best of both worlds. It is seen as a great fit for fans of the genre.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $40.00.

Game completion: 62.0h.

Story completion: 40.0h.

Session length: 2.5h.

Endgame: 50.0h.

Last Epoch often starts slow, with a boring or too-easy opening campaign, but many players report it clicks after the early section, with one explicitly hooked around the 2-hour mark. Conflicting reports exist: some find leveling fun immediately, while others say the endgame becomes repetitive later.

Reported time to anchor: 2h.

Relaxed Solo Self-Found ARPG Player: Plays offline or legacy mode, solo self-found, casual sessions, and avoids trading and seasons. Motivation: Relaxed, self-sufficient ARPG progression without forced trade, multiplayer, or seasonal pressure. Stance: buy.

Build-Theorycrafting ARPG Enthusiast: Theorycrafts skill interactions, crafts gear, experiments with off-meta builds, and min-maxes characters. Motivation: Creating, testing, and optimizing unique builds through skill synergies and crafting. Stance: buy.

Disillusioned Monetization-Wary Veteran: Formerly engaged with seasons and content, now cautious, critical, or avoiding further purchases. Motivation: Warning others about broken monetization promises and publisher direction despite prior long-term investment. Stance: no buy.

Across the Windows cohorts, higher-VRAM systems still report frequent crashes, stutters, and frame drops, while lower-VRAM cohorts are more mixed, with some smooth play and some instability.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Reviews report startup crashes, random performance drops, and general performance issues; a few users say it runs well or has only slight frame drops.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: negative. Most performance feedback cites bad optimization, freezes, severe frame drops, crashes, and missing DLSS/frame-generation support, despite several users still recommending the game.

Windows 16GB+ VRAM: negative. High-end systems report severe drops to under 20 FPS, 30-40 FPS, or 30-50 FPS in fights, while one user says the game barely registers as a workload at 142 FPS.

Steam Deck: Feedback on the Steam Deck experience is mixed but leans toward significant friction. The most impactful issues are frequent crashes and launch failures, including a game that closes immediately on start, error-out crashes on launching, and an LE-51 error that blocks offline mode. Some users must manually set the launch option to Proton Experimental to get it running after crashes, which alone forces a score of at least 40. Controller support is repeatedly described as unintuitive, menu-stuck, and still terrible after patches, hurting handheld usability. Recurring memory leaks, overheating, and severe frame drops each season further degrade the experience. On the positive side, a fully offline mode and generally good optimization make it a strong portable ARPG, with several users confirming it runs well on the Deck. Balancing the strong offline advantage against the crash, Proton, controller, and performance barriers places the overall friction in the Broken range.

Linux and Proton: Linux/SteamOS feedback is mixed but mostly functional. A user on SteamOS reports good 30-40fps performance, while another needed Proton Experimental to fix crashes, and one mentions the game only working offline on Linux. Overall, the game appears playable on Linux with minor Proton tweaks and a possible offline-only limitation.

Monetization: The audit centers on Last Epoch, a buy-to-play ARPG that previously operated a cosmetics-only MTX shop under an explicit 'one-time purchase, no paid content' promise. The dominant and most impactful theme across reviews is the announced shift to selling a core gameplay element (a new character class) as separate paid DLC, which reviewers widely describe as locking core content behind a paywall and breaking the original monetization commitment. A secondary theme is the perception of pay-to-win, driven by claims that new classes are likely to be power-creeped above free options, though several reviewers admit the actual strength is unproven. Confirmed real-money exposure includes the existing premium-currency cosmetics shop and the newly announced paid class, while a minority of reviewers consider the model still reasonable compared to other ARPGs. The Real Money Gate is passed (real money buys in-game goods and now gameplay content), so the case exceeds the cosmetic-only band, landing in the aggressive range rather than the casino-tier predatory range given the partially speculative nature of the pay-to-win claims.

External guides: The audit finds that the primary user complaint is an instructional-data gap, not farming, inventory, or navigation. Users frequently say the game lacks sufficient explanations and guidance for mechanics, builds, and returning to objectives, which forces external searching. Positive reviews praise in-game tooltips and guides that reduce wiki dependency, but the negative feedback centers on learning systems and finding content. A minor alt-tab/manual-exit issue adds Tier 4 friction but does not override Tier 3.

Complexity between Diablo and Path of Exile: Reviewers consistently position the game as a middle ground in complexity, more challenging than Diablo 4 but less overwhelming than Path of Exile. This balance is highlighted as a key strength for players seeking depth without excessive complexity.

Favorable comparisons to Diablo and PoE: Many reviewers compare the game positively to Diablo and Path of Exile, often describing it as a spiritual successor or an improvement on those games' shortcomings. It is seen as a blend of old-school Diablo and modern Path of Exile.

Krafton acquired developer and game: The studio and game were fully acquired by Krafton in 2025. This corporate change is frequently mentioned by reviewers.

Paid DLC and microtransactions: The game has cosmetic microtransactions and paid DLC, including a class sold as DLC. Some reviewers note that it charges for baseline features despite an upfront cost.

Offline mode available: The game offers an offline mode, allowing players to enjoy it completely offline or in semi-offline modes without always-online requirements. This feature is valued by reviewers.