With my main index already full with lots of things being cut or where left it knowing it would be. It was time for me to make and expand the biggest section with it having its own landing page.
The bulk of the content here is for Path of Exile. ARPG and RPG are also one of my favorite genres in gaming. As such I see this section getting not only bigger but quite a few different pieces of content being written for future games.
Table Of Contents
- Bastion
- Borderlands
- Chronicon
- Darkest Dungeon
- Dauntless
- Diablo 3
- Diablo 4
- Firestone Idle RPG
- Grim Dawn
- Kingdom Come Deliverance
- Legend of Grimrock 2
- Lost Ark
- Medieval Dynasty
- Merchant
- Might and Magic VI
- Monster Hunter World
- Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
- Mount & Blade Warband
- Path of Exile
- Path of Exile 2
- Rogue's Tale
- South Park: The Fractured But Whole
- Stardew Valley
- The Outer Worlds
- Titan Quest Anniversary Edition
Bastion
Recommend: Yes
Bastion is an arpg with a strong narration that has aged rather ok with the graphics style used. While some of the mechanics of the game might be simple it was still quite a fun but short adventure to embark on. It also does not follow the more standard arpg style games with the lack of grinding needed to progress forward.
Borderlands
Recommend: Yes
This game is a series of which I’ve only covered one of them so far. I own several and be will working my way up to it in the coming months. I always find it fun to go back and see what a series was like before getting into the new stuff. Sometimes the old days were the best and other times the fun is only starting.
Borderland itself is an RPG with lots of fighting and looting. You play the role of a vault hunt on the search for lost treasure. You get a couple of different classes to pick from whether it be short or long-range combat. Some of them focus a little more on group play but I still had a blast playing solo.
Chronicon
Recommend: Yes
When it comes to ARPG genre I’m a bit of a snob I don’t find many I truly enjoy. This one created by an indie developer presented me with quite a lot of hours of entertainment. The best part is this game is only in early access so there is a lot more to come. Lots of loot, sets, zones, and omg screen-clearing death-defying skill setups await.
Darkest Dungeon
Recommend: Yes
Darkest Dungeon can be a rather brutal dungeon crawler where you will lose heroes, have setbacks, and have things spiral out of control. I take a look at party and heroes, dungeons, and buildings in this game.
Dauntless
Recommend: Yes
Dauntless is a free to play ARPG with a heavy focus on slaying monsters and creating upgrades with the loot the player acquires. If you enjoyed a game like Monster Hunter World than Dauntless should be right up your alley. While it is not as story-rich as Monster Hunter World, Dauntless feels like there is a lot less grinding to be able to upgrade a single piece of gear, level up, and face new challenging monsters.
Diablo 3
Recommend: Not any more
Not a game I play much anymore. The content updates don’t bring much to the table and the company themselves these days are not moving this franchise in a direction I’m happy with.
While I use to be a big D3 fan nowadays I only go near that game if some friends want to create a challenge out of it.
If it’s one thing I’ll always try and do is cram too much into a single post!
Diablo 4
While many of us are hopeful that they can bring back that dark and twisted feeling the game used to have. It’s also questionable if they are willing to spend the money and embrace what Diablo should be about in the first place. I go over some of what we know as I try and not be too overhyped over the future of this franchise.
Diablo Immortal
Recommended: No
While it was "fun" for the first day or so. Once you get up to the level cap it gets rather boring and you end up seeing it for the money grab it is. Unless you just want to play it for a few levels this mobile and PC game is not worth playing even if you need a Diablo fix hopefully Diablo 4 will be what we have all been waiting for.
- Diablo Immortal | Selling Both My Kidneys
- Diablo Immortal | They Should Have Gone All The Way
- Diablo Immortal | Another Slice Of Dungeon Please
- Diablo Immortal | An Age Old Issue
Firestone Idle RPG
Firestone is an idle-free to play clicker game with some elements of an RPG. Players build up their team that has different roles from melee frontline tanking damage to caster backline attackers. The team is fighting an endless wave of monsters that get harder as you progress.
I have also created a guide that goes over quite a few of the basics and what the player needs to master for getting beyond stage 100. While the game can feel like it takes some time and it does. There are some things you can do daily or even weekly to speed up that process without spending real money.
Grim Dawn
Recommend: Yes
Quite a fun hack and slash ARPG that draws a little inspiration from a bunch of different games but remains to be its own thing. You have the classics like going though acts and working your way up into higher difficulties. This game has an amazing and deep class building with different items and skills to make it your own. Along with that fun going through a screen packed screen of monsters.
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Recommend: Yes
If you are looking for some debauchery and run this game has your back. On top of that, it has a deep and rich storyline that also lets you go out and on your own to explore if you choose. The combat system requires you to read what your opponent is doing and counter or attack when giving opportunity. There are also a lot of other smaller things that make this game great like side actives of hunting or lock picking. Overall, Kingdom Come Deliverance has lots to do even when not doing things for the main quest.
Legend of Grimrock 2
Recommend: Yes
The only thing I love more than just an RPG is one with a decent amount of dungeon crawling in it. Even better when they add in some puzzles, hidden doors, and death around the corner. This game will have you picking up everything just in case it has a use but the inner packrat in you was going do that anyways. There is also a bit of mystery behind this being on this island an adventure you take a four-party team on.
Lost Ark
Recommend: Yes
That classic trope of riding along in a wagon I can only hope means I’m about to embark on quite the adventure. So far I have some mixed feelings about Lost Ark. It is an ARPG that was released back in 2019 that has just arrived in western and other markets.
- Lost Ark | First Impressions
- Lost Ark | So Many Things
- Lost Ark | Dungeons Are Amazing
- Lost Ark | The Open Seas
- Lost Ark | Chaos Dungeon Guide
- 2022 Lost Ark | Guardian Raid Guide
- 2022 Lost Ark | Engraving Guide
- 2022 Lost Ark | The Daily Grind
- 2022 Lost Ark | Guardian Raid Event Winter Illusion
- 2022 Lost Ark | Boss Rush Guide
- Lost Ark | Reached Tier 3
- 2022 Lost Ark | Tier 1 Islands And Tips
Medieval Dynasty
Recommend: Game is in early access
Medieval Dynasty is a game that just released in early access and it’s amazing. There are some quirks to the game and a bit of a learning curve. There are already a bunch of things to do from building a town, farming, hunting, and trying to survive the wild.
Merchant
Recommend: Yes
Merchant is a free to play rpg pixel game that was created to not take up a lot of space on the screen. You play the role of a merchant who hires heroes and sends them off to battle creatures and bosses. Afterward, you can craft with the resource the heroes bring back from their quests and sell everything or craft upgrades.
Might and Magic VI
Recommend: Yes
I played this game as a child and I revisited it as an adult. To my shock, it was still working at the time and I had picked the game up as a random gift for buying another game. You could not even buy this game off that site!
Monster Hunter World
Recommend: Yes
Monster Hunter World is an ARPG with an emphasis on fighting boss style monster solo or in a team. Where the players use the parts of the monster they slay to craft new gear, weapons, and items. It is very quest ordinated with the main storyline and a bunch of side questing to do as well.
Mount & Blade Warband
Recommend: Yes
I was hoping we be nearing Bannerlord being out by now but it’s still quite a way away. I have signed up for the beta but no word yet.
While waiting around for it I replayed the classic and wrote about my adventures in it. Some of them are more written as a guide while others more on the fanfiction side.
- The Start
- How I became a Vassal
- To The North, We Go!
- Finding Companions For My Army
- Economic Backbone
- Kingdom of Swadia
- Kingdom of Nords My Love
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Recommend: Once it out of early access
Bannerlord is the successor of Mount & Blade Warband and is currently in early access. If you really enjoyed Warband and just wish it had more modern graphics and mechanics that seems to be the aim of Bannerlord so far. It is a bit buggy and missing a key thing to drive it home. If you are not in a hurry to play it now it’s best to wait till full release.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord | My First Town Siege Is One For The Record Books
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord | Easy Money Making Tips And Farming
Path of Exile
Recommend: Yes 999999999%
Quite an adventure this game has taken me on throughout the years and has been my main source of gaming content on Hive for quite some time. Everything from my overall review of the game, talking about league starts, hardcore races I entered, and many topics about the game. I have almost 30 blogs I’ve written about this game!
This was the first full game review I wrote back in 2017. I wrote very little about gaming before the success this post got. I had no idea where my blog was heading and I was trying to avoid showing my gamer side. It has since that fateful day taken over my blog little by little.
Sentinel League
Path of Exile | Sentinel League Keeping An Eye Out For Upgrades
Path of Exile | Sentinel League Dreaming Of Less Linear Paths
Archenemies League
- Path of Exile | Thoughts On Siege Of The Atlas and Archenemies League
- Path of Exile | Archnemesis League First 24 hours
- Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 2 Striking It Rich In Heist
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 3 Mostly Peaceful Grinding
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 6 Boss Killing And Trading
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 7 Heist King Of the Poor
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 9-10 Bigger Target Takedowns
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 11-12 Skeleton Mage Necromancer
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League So Many Exalts So little Time
Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Playing Around With Blight
Scourge League
- Path Of Exile | Thoughts On Upcoming Scourge League And Game Changes
- Path Of Exile | Scourge League Day 49 And 50
Endless Delve SSF Event
One of my favorite of all time leagues is Delve. When it was announced there would be a solo self-found event there was no way I could not play. I dusted off my Path of Exile shoes and enjoyed the event for the time I had.
Metamorph League
So far this league I have to enter completed the usual hardcore race that I join every time. I managed to do better than I was expecting but this league sure does pack a few punches. While have plans for further content regarding league mechanics and such I have been a bit delayed in playing enough to write them up.
Blight
This was the tower defense league where players set up towers and battled it out against waves of monsters to protect the Blight pump. Players earned points from getting kills and could set up a fire, minion, chilling, and many other types of towers. At the end of each encounter if they were successful they got to loot a bunch of chests as the reward.
During this league, I started it off as I have been with the last few by entering into a 24-hour hardcore race.
- Path of Exile | Intention To Compete In SSF Hardcore 24 Hour Blight Race
- Path of Exile | Getting My Butt Kicked Four Times In A 24 Hour SSF Hardcore Blight Race
Before each league starts, I write up my thoughts on what information is given ahead of time. I was rather thrilled about this league and loved how different they made it.
Legion League
This league was all about interacting with Timeless Monoliths that showed a battle trapped in time. The player then had the option of running around and break out the monster frozen in time they wanted to fight for a reward. This required having a fast and agile build to get around or clear the large cluster of monsters in the short amount of time given.
Added to core game? Yes
During the 24-hour hardcore race, I entered I wrote a narrative about my adventure adding a bit of flair to the normal leveling up process.
I did my normal breakdown on what I was expecting and excited to see about this league
I also wrote a number a short update on how my progress in softcore went. I use to write a lot more of these but I’ve done them to the point not a lot changes during the first few days outside of what the league adds.
Synthesis League
This league was quite different and started to show just how far they could push things in the amount of time they have between leagues to make a new one. You had to enter into dreams and collect pieces that you then could use to get to different islands filled with monsters and treasure. Some of the islands gave a bonus to all ones that were connected so players focused on creating long chains.
Added to core game? Yes
My entry into a 24-hour hardcore race occurred in the Synthesis race. I race against a couple of people here on Steem and then afterword I move on over to softcore and play the rest of the league there.
I make the transition from hardcore over to softcore and stat fresh on my new adventure for the remaining of the league.
- Path of Exile | Progression Update On Softcore Synthesis League
- Update Two On Synthesis League Progression
- Update Three On Synthesis League Progression
Betrayal League
This ended up being one of my least favorite leagues due to the lag that I deal with now every time it’s in a zone and I’m not the only one wishing it was not added to the core game. The league itself is based around a syndicate of members who you had to capture by defeating them. You then could accept one of the options they provide by allowing them to work with or against other members. In an attempt to line the board your way for the rewards you wanted to gain by running the end game zone.
Added to core game? Yes
As is the case in some of these races I get killed and in hardcore, you get to start all over again. With it being solo self-found you just hope you were putting older gear in the shared chest as you can’t trade with other players. If you did you could level up faster with anything you left yourself as a backup.
Some updates on how I was progressing for the remainder of the league in softcore.
My prewrite up before any league starts. I go over some insights and thoughts I had about the league itself.
Delve League
This for me is my most favorite league of all time once they found the right balance of everything. The player gathers Sulphite above ground and gets to use it to power a device called The Crawler that lights the way in the mine for the player to move deeper. Along the way, they gather Azurite and battle different encounters hoping to survive and unlock the next checkpoint. The deeper you go the more rewarding and harder it becomes.
Added to core game? Yes
Back in the day, the hardcore race we have here on Hive use to be a much longer format. It gave you time to fail but also meant you had to push harder and for longer to try and get onto the scoreboard.
- Entry Into Hardcore SSF Race
- Delve Hardcore SSF Race Day 1
- Delve Hardcore SSF Race Day 2
- Delve Hardcore SSF Race Day 3
- The End Of The Line
This just shows how much I enjoyed this league mechanics and continue to this day to go down into the mine and have some fun. Really glad this one was added to the core game.
Little did I know this would be a major reason to keep playing this game after all the hours I’ve put into it.
Incursion League
This league really showed how into using a countdown clock to put pressure on the player tends to be in a league. The player had to go back in time 11 times to unlock rooms in the Temple of Atzoatl with the hope of clearing a path to the apex or anything else of interest. They could change or upgrade a room as well depending on which mini-boss they took out if they had enough time.
Added to core game? Yes
You can get a lot done in a 72-hour race if you really push things. You can also have some funny and interesting miss-steps as well.
- Getting Ready For Incursion And Poecomp
- Day 1 Hardcore Incursion Race
- Day 2 Hardcore Incursion Race
- Day 3 Hardcore Incursion Race
Some updates and thoughts about the Incursion League. I was not so thrilled about how little time the player gets to have while they went back in time to fight monsters and unlock the room. I prefer a wide range of builds to be able to enjoy it instead of mostly quick speed runners.
- Incursion Progress Update
- Path of Exile |Incursion Leauge
- Making My Way Towards Maps In Incursion League
Bestiary League
Sometimes it takes them a few tries to find that balance for a league. This one was filled with getting chased across entire zones and death until that happened! You had to go around and capture monsters in nets at the time. You later could summon them in an arena and fight a pack of different ones you collected for a reward.
While the whole visiting your collection and reading lore about different creatures was cool. It didn’t make up for everything else that made this league quite a challenge. Sometimes I would just leave a map due to the event inside and how deadly it was when trying speed past it. Still, do this day I mostly ignore them and just try to get around these events.
Added to core game? Yes
The races we use to have for Path of Exile would last for 7 days! It was filled with rips, some very long nights, and struggles. I ended up enjoying it so much I made a tradition to enter into them at the start of each league.
- Intention to Compete: Path of Exile
- Day 1 Hardcore Race Update
- Hardcore Race Update Day 2
- Hardcore Race Update Day 3
- Hardcore Race Update Day 4
- Hardcore Race Update Day 5
- Hardcore Race Update Day 6 And 7
- Recap Of My Hardcore Experiences
I ended up making a lot of content for Path of Exile around this time as I use to be a lot more active back then. Everything was also fresh to talk about and create content around. So it was fun for me and everything was not talked about before. Making it quite easy for a while to just write something up as a topic.
Abyss League
This was quite a fun one as you never know if you would get to go down into the abyss or just get a normal chest to loot. These cracks would spawn above ground that you had to chase and clear all the monster spawning from them. Till a point, you got to the end where you either got a chest or a doorway down into the abyss. From there you got to fight the boss and get gear that has abyss sockets on them. Even to this day many players still use and farm for this gear.
Other Path of Exile Content
I’ve created a bunch of other content for the game far too much to want to include all of them. Some below are guides while others are random things I usually do as well in a league.
A short piece where I poked some fun at gamer culture. While also going over Grinding Gear Games’ standard approach to informing the players about incoming nerfs.
I explored and hunted many gods that make up the different pantheon powers you can use.
This is one of those I thought would be a great idea. 15 hours later into creating this I just wanted it to end! I might have lost some of my sanity—what was left anyways.
While I’ve enjoyed playing Shadow for most of my time spent in Path of Exile I have on occasion tried out different playstyles. Such as this one focused on farming drops.
This was in part just going be one of many series of posts I made regarding different mechanics in the game. There is just so much in this game that comes from its beauty of age.
For a while, I wanted to visit every map in the game. While also my favorite ones and talk about them. After several blogs like this one, it becomes rather templated, soul-crushing, and just mind-numbing boring for me to keep going. I never followed all the way through with this idea. Showing one in this post is good enough!
At one point Path of Exile did a major overhaul of their hideout selection by adding in a bunch of new ones to collect. While also further extending out player’s abilities to customize them so I took a look at quite a few of the new ones.
Path of Exile 2
This one came out of nowhere and everyone is hyped for the future of Path of Exile in general. While we are still over a year out lots of exciting and fun things are happening in this space. They are not only going darker but changing some core elements to the game for the better.
Rogue's Tale
Recommend: Yes
Sometimes you are just in the mood to go achievement hunting in a game and Rogue’s Tale certainly scratches it with 482 of them for the base game. Rogue’s Tale is an RPG roguelike that can be quite a burial to get started in.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Recommend: Yes
The Fractured But Whole is a South Park rpg game with lots of dark humor and you darn well know people getting triggered over it. I had a ripping good time between the turn-based combat beating up the 6th graders and farting on everyone
Stardew Valley
Recommend: Yes
Farming simulators on Facebook be dammed this one got some spunk and no microtransaction as well. Mix in some RPG elements, spelunking, and fishing and you have a nice little game to spend the nights away with. I loved just jumping into the different mines and going as deep as I could in a single day.
The Outer Worlds
Recommend: Yes
The Outer Worlds is a sci-fi RPG where choices matter with a lot of side questing and adventures to get wound up in. You find yourself from the get-go in quite a dicey situation where you will be tested by picking different choices of your morals and how you end up playing in The Outer Worlds universe.
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition
Recommend: Yes
While the original is getting quite old they not only came out with an Anniversary Edition but even an expiation pack not too long ago. This old school mud is still very much alive. Filled with the classic hack and slash style of gameplay many enjoy this genre. Along with that classic ARPG progression of defeating all the acts in the game and starting again on a harder difficulty.
Information
Screenshots and were taken and content is written by @enjar. Screenshots are from each of the individual games they are listed under. The cover image is from Path of Exile.
