A group of Path of Exile 2 players pushed the action RPG's engine to its limits by summoning approximately 2,000 skeletons, causing significant performance degradation and disrupting normal gameplay. Streamer Empyriangaming led the effort, which involved acquiring extremely expensive in-game gear to facilitate the massive minion army.
Normally, Path of Exile 2 minion builds feature around 10 to 15 skeletons. Empyriangaming and his collaborators devised a method to drastically reduce the resource cost per minion, allowing for a much higher summon count. While the game limits individual minion types to 255 before resetting the counter, the group circumvented this by coordinating multiple players, each summoning their own sets of minions. This collective effort aimed to maximize the number of on-screen summons.
The experiment quickly revealed the game's struggle to cope with the sheer volume of on-screen entities. Players experienced severe frame rate drops, turning actions into stop-motion sequences. Even basic movements like dodge rolling became significantly delayed, with one player noting a 30-second lag. The game's performance became so compromised that it rendered normal gameplay unplayable.
To further test the limits, the group entered Path of Exile 2's roguelike Trial of the Sekhemas mode. This mode offers bonuses that can double minion counts. With this buff active and all six players summoning their armies, the total number of minions reached an estimated 2,000. The visual spectacle was accompanied by extreme lag, as indicated by frame rate graphs that fluctuated wildly. The attempt to consolidate the horde into a single mass exacerbated the performance issues.
When the group took their immense skeleton force into a standard map to confront a boss, the performance issues persisted. Navigating the game world became a slow and arduous task, making it difficult to locate and engage enemies. The lag made efficient combat impossible, as players struggled to move even short distances.
In a final experiment, Empyriangaming returned to his hideout and instructed everyone to continuously summon skeletons. Simultaneously, he listed a valuable item on the game's trade website at an unrealistically low price. This action successfully lured automated bot accounts and unsuspecting human players into the trap. Players entering the hideout were met with a chaotic scene of hundreds of skeletons.
The experience proved disorienting for those lured in, with many immediately leaving the hideout upon realizing the situation. While one player managed to acquire the cheaply listed item and escape, the encounter with the overwhelming minion army left a notable impression, with one player exclaiming, "Wtf is this." The incident highlights the potential for creative, albeit disruptive, player actions in Path of Exile 2.