When comparing Hawken vs Path of Exile, the Slant community recommends Hawken for most people. In the question“What are the best free online multiplayer games on Xbox One?” Hawken is ranked 2nd while Path of Exile is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Hawken is:
In Hawken, almost everything can be bought with in-game currency. Unlike most free to play games this even includes items such as cosmetic changes. While you may have to do a bit of grinding, this game can be fully played without spending a dime.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Almost completely free
In Hawken, almost everything can be bought with in-game currency. Unlike most free to play games this even includes items such as cosmetic changes. While you may have to do a bit of grinding, this game can be fully played without spending a dime.
Pro No PS+ subscription required
Most PS4 games with multiplayer modes require an additional subscription called Playstation Plus. However, free games that have online multiplayer don't generally need PS+ to play online, which is a much welcomed feature for players who can't fork out money for this subscription.
Pro Fast-paced and fun action
Hawken breaks the idea that large heavy mechs equate to slow movement. You'll instead move at a brisk pace, constantly firing your machine guns and launching rockets at the enemy. The mechs are also equipped with jump-jets, allowing you to make very swift evasive maneuvers and hover above the battlefield, so it has a 3D tactics aspect unlike most FPS games. All of this makes the action really enjoyable.
Pro Encourages teamplay
In a genre saturated with lone wolf games like Call of Duty, it's nice to have a game like Hawken which makes teamwork a necessity. You'll immediately notice how disadvantageous 1v2 battles are, so you'll always look to cooperate with your teammates. From things like providing covering fire to defending each other when repairing mechs, it feels nice when you can rely on your teammates on a regular basis.
Pro Great sense of immersion
Hawken does an excellent job of making you feel like you really are in the mech. From the vibrations on the glass when you're firing off a salvo of missiles to the swaying of the cockpit when you're stomping your way through a destroyed city, there are many details that considerably add to the immersion.
Pro Hundreds of possible character builds
There's a staggering amount of builds and skills you can try out in Path of Exile. There are 7 classes, 19 subclasses, 194 active skill gems, 107 support gems, and over 1000 skill nodes on the expansive skill tree. As a result, there are hundreds of possible combinations, allowing you to spend hours theory-crafting just to create the perfect build. Even if you don't feel like planning out a build from scratch, you can just look up one of the many guides online and get straight into the action.
Pro Completely free without pay to win mechanics
You can just download and install the game without any purchases. On top of that, there are no pay-to-win mechanics and the only things locked behind paywalls are cosmetic effects, pets, and additional storage space. You can easily play the game for hundreds of hours without spending a dime.
Pro Regularly updated
Every 4 months or so, Path of Exile has major updates, adding new interesting mechanics, skills, items, and various other content. As a result, every time you come back to Path of Exile after taking a break, it feels like a new game.
Pro Great setting
Path of Exile is set in a dark fantasy world where everything is gradually becoming worse. At the foreground, you have the massive continent of Wraeclast that once was the home to a flourishing empire, but now is a place filled with the undead, evil spirits, ruins, and echoes of the past. To make matters worse, malicious entities from another dimension seek to corrupt the world and its inhabitants, giving birth to disfigured monstrosities that seek to end you. The end result is an immersive setting with dark motifs, body horror, loads of gore, and a very tense atmosphere, which is refreshing in an era dominated by family friendly content.
Pro Feels exhilarating to play
While the gameplay might feel a little slow and clunky in the beginning, it gradually picks up speed as you progress, allowing you to swiftly destroy large groups of monsters with any skills you choose. Whether you're shooting ice arrows with your bow, freezing and shattering every enemy on-screen, or if you're cleaving enemies with a massive axe, causing them to bleed and explode on death, it just feels incredibly satisfying.
Pro Greet Developer
Grinding Gear Games provide a lot of communication and community interaction
Cons
Con Lack of story is a missed opportunity
A current trend in online gaming is that many games do not offer a single player campaign or any means to tell a story. Sadly Hawken continues this trend as it does very little to expand on its interesting setting, which is very disappointing.
Con Anti-experimentation for new players
The game heavily punishes any experimentation for new players. Unless you have near perfect understanding of late game and the various viable build-options you are more or less unable to experiment your way into viable builds (and the options for correcting mistakes are limited at best). So, unless you are fine with having to scrap a bunch of characters for being sub-optimal, you are more or less forced into following player-made guides to learn the game rather than through engaging with the game itself. This may or may not be a problem for you.
Con Very high learning curve
There's quite a lot to learn when starting to play Path of Exile. There are the mechanics, the crafting system, and the skill gem system. However, the most intimidating factor is the massive skill tree with over 1000 skill nodes, 6 classes and 19 subclasses, allowing you to create hundreds of unique builds. Unfortunately, creating a functional build is really difficult, taking hours of theorycrafting, so it might be better to stick to guides as you're starting out, unless you're fine with possibly messing up.
Con Endgame can get really repetitive
It takes an exceptionally long time to get any wealth, useful items, or access to endgame bosses in this game. You endlessly farm the same maps, hoping you'll get lucky with a few good items, but that usually won't be the case, which can be really discouraging to keep playing. This is made worse by the fact that your character progression comes to a grinding halt near the upper 80s of character levels, requiring you to buy insanely expensive items to feel any progression at all. If you don't like grinding, you'll get quickly bored of Path of Exile.
Con Clunky trading system
The western PC version of Path of Exile currently requires using an external site to find deals or sifting through scam attempts in the trade chat. After you find an item you want to buy, you need to message the seller, and if they respond, enter the same area as them to make a direct trade. There is no auction house, no mail, no automated trading posts, and to sell stuff you have to buy a premium stash tab via a microtransaction.
Con One shot fest
This game has an extreme learning curve, meaning you'll invest 100 hours of just reading on the internet before understanding the basic game, plus the endgame is a one dimensional "spam all flasks and one shot everything or get one shot" style of gameplay.
Con Unrewarding
You fight 40 minutes with "uber uber boss" and he drops white items that can be found anywhere in barrels most of the time
whats worse, you have to "farm" "fragments" to start that boss battle, that will take a while too, if you decide to buy the fragments, you will drop nothing and you will lose a lot of currency.
Con Some aspects of the graphics look dated
While the graphics have received updates over time, a lot of the visuals still lack polish you'd see in most AAA games. Some textures are fairly low res, certain character models look weird when they have armor on, and the animations feel somewhat stiff and clunky. You probably won't notice this during active gameplay, but when you stop for a moment to look around it becomes painfully obvious.