On 9 March 2023, Last Epoch developers added the multiplayer patch—and the number of concurrent players has been going haywire ever since. Last Epoch hit a new all-time-high 40,591 concurrent players after the new multiplayer update.
Before the update, that number hovered between 1K and 2K players. The new update is a milestone achievement for the indie dungeon-crawler which hopes to rival some of the big names in the genre.
Last Epoch has been in Steam’s early access since April 2019. The game has been updated several times by its dedicated team of developers at Eleventh Hour Games. Although the fan base has experienced steady growth, the number of concurrent players it witnessed then is only a teeny fraction of what it is now.
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Before the release of the multiplayer patch, the developers worked hard to refine the game’s hack-and-slash gameplay. The focus all this while was on improving the graphics. With the game getting close to its anticipated release date later this year, the developers unveiled a bucketful of new features, content, and other changes.
The game description reveals that “Last Epoch combines time travel, exciting dungeon crawling, engrossing character customization, and endless replayability”. The Action RPG game is suitable for both newcomers and veterans
Last Epoch players are challenged to journey through the world of Eterra’s past and fight untouched wilds, wrathful gods, and dark empires in an adventure “to save time itself from The Void”. Players of the Native Linux version have reported bugs that seemed to have been ignored for years.
What make’s Last Epoch truly unique?
Some gamers have compared Last Epoch to Diablo owing to the hack-and-slash gameplay. The majority of its over 10,000 reviews have been “very positive”. The game has a couple of features that would easily get gamers hooked including over 100 skill trees.
Every skill has a dedicated tree that allows the player to alter or control their playing style. The more you grow your skill tree, the more powerful your attacks will become. For example, your lightning blast can transform into chain lightning while your skeletons can be transformed into archers.
Eleventh Hour Games said “the game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work” which includes general mature content, gore, or frequent violence. The new patch expands the content and possibilities. According to the patch note, features of the new patch include:
- Multiplayer!
- New 3D models for new and existing Uniques
- Novel Armor sets for Acolyte, Mage, Primalist, Rogue, and Sentinel
- New Unique Items
- Balance Changes, including almost every skill in the game
- Performance Improvements
- New Music & Sound
- New Player animations, and skill VFX
- Novel Bone Golem and Manifest Armor models
- New Enemies
- Reworked Zones
- New Monolith Maps
- Bug Fixes
The new patch, Patch 0.9 is called Convergence. The developers released a video on 7 March 2023, describing some of the updates that will be available in the Convergence Patch 0.9. Judd Cobler, the game director for Last Epoch highlighted the challenges of developing a multiplayer game.
“I will like to address and provide some context to the recent gaps in our releases,” Cobler said. “Developing server authoritative multiplayer with a smaller but growing team has come with plenty of challenges including the need to rewrite systems so that they are ready for scale. Advertently, that took much longer than anticipated.
How to access the game’s multiplayer mode
If you are playing Last Epoch for the first time, there are a few things that you need to know. Firstly, you need to make sure that your system has the right specs to smoothly run the game. While not in the triple-A category, Last Epoch is CPU and storage-demanding.
According to the recommended system requirements, you will need the 6th generation Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200, 16 GB of RAM, 20 GB of available storage (preferably SSD), and a broadband internet connection to seamlessly run this game.
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To gain access to the multiplayer feature, you need to first update your game—if you have not done that already. Once the game has been updated, launch it from Steam. Once it loads, select the “Play Online” menu.
The multiplayer game finally unites players with their friends. Eleventh Hour Games has made it easy to form a party. To join your friend in Last Epoch, follow the simple hack below.
- Launch the game and select the “Play Online” menu.
- Move your cursor to the top left corner and select the profile picture of your friend that you want to join. For this to happen, your friend should be on Steam and playing the online game too.
- Choose “Portal To Player”
- A portal will appear close to your player
- Walk through the portal to reunite with your friend
Some players have reported glitches with the portal feature. As the developers continue to work hard to fine-tune the game, most of those bugs should be fixed in the next patch. One thing we learned is that Last Epoch doesn’t have bugs that players consider deal-breaker just yet.
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