It's also tough. Very tough.

(Image credit: Grinding Gear Games)Ruthless and dynamic
Released with the 3.20 Forbidden Sanctum league last December, Ruthless is essentially a hard mode for Path of Exile. It craters drop rates for loot, takes away most movement skills, and introduces a host of other modifications that substantially slow the game down and make it more difficult POE currency trade . The Path of Exile 2 demo reminded me a lot of playing on Ruthless.

Monsters in Path of Exile 2 hit hard, and they have all sorts of nefarious means to surround you. I had seen some streamers get absolutely ranched playing the demo, so at the beginning I took it very slowly, and I'm glad I did. Like in PoE's Ruthless mode, I didn't have juiced movement speed from gear, teleports, or spells that blew up the whole screen. What I did have was a dodge roll, and boy did I need it. A new feature in PoE2, all characters get an unlimited dodge roll that doesn't require a skill gem and can even animation cancel if you're stuck in a big attack and need to move immediately.

(Image credit: Grinding Gear Games)
All four playable characters in the demo had this dynamic: multiple skills to use, none of which were good all of the time, but all of which were great some of the time.

At first I crawled. I got stuck. I died. As I got acclimated, however, things started sliding into place. The regular staff attacks on the monk didn't do a ton of damage, but they did have a small AoE and a bit of stagger, so I could use them to stave things off. Falling Thunder did unreal damage, but I needed power charges to make it work. Killing Palm could get me those charges, but was sluggish to use and put me at risk cheap POE orbs .