Path of Exile 2 has many inspirations from Elden Ring to Civilization 5, according to the game director

According to Path of Exile 2 game director Jonathan Rogers, the game takes a lot of inspirations from across the gaming landscape, including Elden Ring and the broader action genre for its boss fights, and Civilization V for its final map. Revealed during an endgame presentation and fleshed out in a press roundtable, the topic first came up after a story boss fight in which the player character faces a massive construction with more than one dozen unique attacks and several phases. When asked about broader inspirations in a questionable press interview after the performance, Rogers stated the following.

“Honestly, it would be very difficult for me to come up with just one game, because we got inspired.” [a lot] and there are random influences everywhere. The game map, right? What I told the artists is that I want it to look like Civiliation V! These are things you wouldn’t normally expect to influence an ARPG. We draw inspiration from everywhere, and it’s hard to even narrow down the list.” “Obviously the recent action games because they were close to the combat stuff we were doing, things like Elden Ring. I play all types of video game genres, I’m not limited to just ARPGs. But I think, oddly enough, single-player action games are probably my favorite genre.” “It’s really what I love, so those types of games are what I draw a lot of inspiration from in terms of boss design.” and things like that. We really want the bosses in PoE 2 to be world class as far as action games go. There are a lot of interesting mechanics, a lot of skills, and it takes a lot of work to create such a boss. In PoE 2 we also have to take into account the possibility of dodging the bearing, right? So there are more considerations about the type of action game you need to take into account. We have to be an action game and a stats game at the same time, which is quite complicated.” We look at the merit behind PoE 2’s boss design in our preview of the game, which you can read in full here. Path of Exile 2 is scheduled to launch on December 6 on PC and console.