My thoughts on the game's story

Hello everyone!

I will preface this, by saying that i know that this is NOT PoE 1. And that i'm in no way a game director or know what will happen next in the campaign.

So..

I found some free time today and was zipping through the maps, as one does, having a good time. It's the first time i have gone so deep into PoE 2's endgame, because of real life, adulting, work...all that stuff.

And so, as i was zipping through the game, killing rare after rare, destroying the abyss monsters, and having a good time, i felt kind of... weird.

The story for PoE2 is good, so far, and i enjoyed it. But i find myself missing the power fantasy, the horror of PoE 1's campaign and setting.

Don't get me wrong, i understand that we're talking about two different stories here, but PoE 2 feels... a bit too sanitised, a bit too soft (for lack of a better term).

In PoE 1 the player character was weak at the beginning. And then we are introduced to Piety. The first time i entered the Piety's lab, and realised the horrors she had unleashed, the literal pools and rivers of blood, the massive amount of corpses, the music, the screams, the aesthetic of it all... I was amazed. Every time i entered in that area, i felt something tightening in my chest. I used to speed run (as much as i could) the campaign, but i always fully explored Act 3. As characters, we started small and weak, and now we get a glimpse of the horrors we are against.

By the time act 5 comes around, we try to kill a god, and we fail spectacularly.

The second part of the campaign has us killing less powerful gods and getting their powers, stand on equal ground with literal legends, kill legendary foes, and at the end, we kill Kitava.

We are now a literal god killers. As players, we preen and gloat at our character's strength. And then maps come around and we realise that holy hell, Kitava was nothing against what we face here. But i shall ignore maps, because it would be unfair to compare PoE1 and PoE2 endgames.

PoE2 feels too soft, to sanitised, there's nothing in the campaign so far that makes people go..."Oh damn, we're strong." or "Oh damn, this guy HAS to die". It lacks the power fantasy, it lacks the horror element. It lacks motivation for the players. It feels like a series of fetch quests. Instead of "go save this guy" or "Please save us by killing this guy", it's a series of "go get these items" and "Go bring me this".

Yes, there are parts of the campaign that tell us to "Please help us by killing this person", like the witch in Act 3, but they are very few.

Also, why are NPCs kill-stealing?

1.We fight the Boss in Act 1. One of the hardest fights in the game. The hooded one steals the kill.
2.We fight the boss in Act 2, while the Sekhema is passed out, and she suddenly wakes up, and steals our kill.
3.We fight the boss in act 4, a person that went so far as to corrupt his whole village and himself, to the point that his own GOD, Tukohama, goes "Hey, dude, WTF?", and yet somehow he reverts from being a literal monster, completely healed from corruption (somehow), and we all happily move on, while he's offering his tribe's help to our cause. At this point sir, i regret to inform you that there's no tribe left, we killed them all.

What?

I know that there's some story behind the Sekhema taking the kill, and the Hooded one needing information from the Count, and so on and so forth.

But at the end of the day, WE, THE PLAYERS, didn't get the kill.

While the story so far is good, it lacks emotion. It's too sterile. The campaign doesn't rouse our curiosity, doesn't make us angry, desperate, powerless, and at the end of the day, happy and overjoyed to have overcome our trials.

The gameplay does, that's for sure, but the story does not.

And i feel like it's a missed opportunity.

Sorry for the long read.

Have fun all.

as it was pointed out to me the act4 boss is 'healed' by the weapon that we got (it can revert corruption) so lore checks out here. but yes i don't like that he is spared (doing it once in the whole story is ok, but this pattern is weak)

NPC kill stealing clearly bothers me, altho Asala can have that kill- she did a magnificent job :3

I'm surprised you didn't touch on how Dory just sits back while be slaughter the very last of his 'peepol', and we also don't kill the twins neither.

and i agree about the grim feel of poe1 is lost, there is some strong scenes like Asala beheading Jama scene but the horror is just not there. its very odd esp if you look at the recent additions to act2 lore in poe1 (the VA on the letters at crossroads)... its not the times, its something else.