Path of Exile 2's Crossbow-Wielding Mercenary Class Revealed, Will Support WASD Movement
As part of today's livestream, Grinding Gear Games revealed one of the new classes coming to Path of Exile 2 next year, the Mercenary. The class uses a crossbow and incorporates lessons learned from shooters, including adding WASD movement to the ARPG.
Path of Exile 2, first revealed in 2019 during the inaugural ExileCon in New Zealand, is slated to be released into open beta next June. Multiple classes so far have been revealed, including the quick, combo-busting Monk to the powerful and dangerous Druid. However, while each of these new classes brings a new playstyle and way of looking at the ARPG to play, the Mercenary seems like it fundamentally changed how the developers looked at how the ARPG as a whole was played.
In the video, PoE 2 game director Jonathan Rogers debuts the Mercenary, a crossbow-wielding class that, thanks to the nature of the weapon, requires instant feedback when firing. Rogers describes is as «fundamentally different than a regular bow,» given that you needn't draw back an arrow each time you use it. As a result, the crossbow functions more like a gun in the Path of Exile 2 world, which forced the developers to look closer at how its mechanics reflected this need for immediate feedback.
Rogers, in the stream today, says that the team really embraced the lessons they had to learn from shooters to get the Mercenary's crossbow to feel just right. As a result, WASD movement is coming to the ARPG, allowing for freer aiming with the mouse and, in effect, feeling more like a shooter for those Mercenary players. WASD movement isn't only for Mercenary players — any player can use it, though for those looking for the more traditional Path of Exile experience, the click-to-move option is still available.
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