Path of Exile 1, the 12-year-old revolutionary free-to-play ARPG, is leagues above its own successor, having six times its concurrent players. The sequel, currently in early access, is actively bleeding players as development grinds away slowly ahead of the full release. According to SteamDB, the original Path of Exile has around 115, 000 concurrent players on Steam, with the sequel hovering around 20, 000 during peak hours. The former recently received a new expansion, Keepers of the Flame, which launched on Oct. 31 and immediately drew in tons of players, propelling the game from an average peak of 10, 000 to over 185, 000 players. It’s the first proper expansion in a long while and a major show of appreciation for GGG’s original title, which many feared would be sidelined in favor of Path of Exile 2. While on the topic of PoE 2, the game has been in early access for almost a year now, but instead of spending a planned six months in development before its full, free-to-play release, it has been in early access for, well, almost 12. The last major update was patch 0. 3, which added tons of new content and saw the game soar to over 300, 000 peak players, but they quickly abandoned ship as content ran out. PoE 2 needs to hurry up and give us MORE. We’re a month away from the first anniversary of PoE 2’s launch, which will hopefully be a major milestone that will see the release of patch 0. 4, but we’ll likely have to wait until 2026 for that to happen. PoE 2 is an amazing game by all accounts, but I cannot say that the slow development hasn’t driven me away from it. I bought in on launch day and played as much as I could, but the three acts available then ran out quickly and left me yearning for more. Bits and crumbs did come our way, including a fourth Act, but it’s simply not enough, and I hope to see GGG pick up the pace and make PoE 2 into the giant ARPG masterpiece it’s meant to be. In the meantime, it seems I and many others have another thing to play. For free, mind you. The post 12 year old Path of Exile is beating its sequel with six times the player count as GGG’s new title suffers massive player losses appeared first on Destructoid.