For those who love isometric hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers, 2019 is proving to be quite a treat. Diablo 4. Diablo Immortal. Path of Exile 2. Now, not all of these announcements carry the same weight, nor will the final products entertain us in equal measure. Despite this, it’s hard not to be excited for what’s to come, and this long and exciting list just got even better with an announcement no one saw coming: Path of Exile mobile!

Now, by this point you’re either blown away or are hurrying to close this tab in disgust. Mobile gaming simply isn’t everyone’s forte, which is perfectly fine. To some, it’s hard to get excited for a ton of screen taping and virtual buttons. To others, that’s all they know and crave.

Playing on the Go Isn’t All Sunshine and Rainbows

But despite the inherent flaws that come with such an undertaking, the fact that we’re getting these amazing titles for our phones is quite mind-blowing. The trailer sets the tone immediately and the co-founders speak directly: they don’t want to create yet another “mobile nightmare.” Annoying video pop-ups, advertisements, microtranscations, energy bars, time gates, and so on. They’re also grouping these annoyances into one basket: “evil garbage.”

While this might be a harsh way to phrase things, it’s hard to come up with a counter-argument. These elements are one of the main reasons as to why most people hate the notion of mobile gaming (as if the lack of physical controls wasn’t a big enough hurdle). Most of them are designed in the exact same way, and are basically cash grabs, regardless of their depth or level of quality.

The developers (Grinding Gear Games) are also proud with what they’ve accomplished and just how layered a product they’ve been able to create. They’re touting a PC-like Path of Exile experience, and if they really deliver on their claims then we could truly be getting a must-play mobile title.

And by the looks of it, they’ve done an admirable job, to say the least. The graphics are phenomenal, you have a ton of the same controls, the feature-rich skill trees, many cosmetic items, a ton of gear, and so on. By all accounts, this looks like a 1:1 port that just so happens to be played on a mobile phone. Path of Exile mobile is a win-win kind of situation as it’ll not only attract the existing playerbase but also thousands of potential new players, people who have yet to experience the grim and gory world that Path of Exile has to offer.

It’s also fairly fascinating to see so many popular titles make the jump over the mobile, and we’re not getting dumbed-down improvised ports either — these are full-fledged ports that contain all the bells and whistles. There’s an exciting question at hand as well: will Path of Exile mobile be able to compete with Diablo Immortal? They’re targeting two distinct audiences, but there’s a solid enough area where they overlap. We’re definitely inclined to side with Grinding Gear Games primarily because they don’t seem to be catering to the Chinese audience as much when compared to Blizzard (even though Tencent Games has a stake in their company as well). Regardless of the way things ultimately unfold, it’s exciting to see yet another beloved franchise make the jump over to mobile.

If you’re looking for even more Path of Exile mobile goodness, you can take a look at the pre-alpha gameplay footage down below:

There’s still no release date, but we’re bound to get more information over the coming months. For pre-alpha footage this looks incredibly polished, so fall 2020 might be a fairly realistic prediction.