Broken Oath vs Path of Exile — The Original Benchmark

Broken Oath (Steam app 5452900) is a single-player action RPG from Crater Studios, set in the Dwarven Realms universe. It has six classes — Warrior, Mage, Ranger, Samurai, Paladin and Necromancer — and it is not out. A Steam playtest has run since 30 October 2026; Early Access is estimated at six to twelve months, with neither a date nor a price announced.

Path of Exile (Steam app 238960) is Grinding Gear Games' free-to-play, always-online action RPG, first released on 23 October 2013. On 7 November 2026 the live version was 3.29, Curse of the Allflame. The 3.30 expansion, Covens of Umbra, is announced for 13 November 2026; it was not live at check time.

The practical difference is scope. PoE 1 is a released, continuously updated online game with thirteen years of systems folded into it. Broken Oath is a playtest build with a confirmed skeleton — six classes, skill gems and supports, a passive tree, a Forge, Ruptures — and a long list of unannounced details. Compare the designs, not the maturity.

PoE 1 treats skills as items. A gem grants an ability, sits in a socket in your gear, and linked sockets decide how many support gems can modify it — up to five. Supports change behaviour: a fireball can chain or split. Since 3.29 any gem fits any socket colour, sockets default to white, and matching colour grants a 10% gem-quality bonus. Seven classes share one passive tree with seven starting locations, plus keystones, masteries and jewel sockets; 21 ascendancies are listed, three per class. Crafting runs on orb currency that rerolls item properties, a crafting bench and league-specific systems.

Broken Oath uses the same vocabulary at a smaller scale. Six classes, skill gems with linkable supports that change how a skill works — the store's examples are a Cyclone that fires Ember Bolts while channelling, a burning legion, and arrows raining in a chosen element. A passive tree with notables and keystones; the observed build screen charges 2 gold per refunded node. Blessings and Curses add a second layer: Vows for power, Woe on a pack. The Forge uses rune stones found in each land and recipes learned from Edda Ironhand.

The honest comparison is known versus unknown. PoE 1's build space is documented down to gem tags. Broken Oath has the right nouns — links, supports, keystones, crafting — but not the numbers. Link limits, gem lists and respec costs at scale are unpublished. So is whether supports trade power for behaviour. One creator calls the Forge deterministic, in the Last Epoch sense; that is a player's read, not a studio statement.

PoE 1's endgame is the Atlas of Worlds: more than a hundred high-level maps, a separate Atlas passive tree, and a league mechanic folded into the map device. 3.30 rebuilds that tree and replaces Scarabs with Threads of Creation — announced, not live on 7 November. Each challenge league starts on a fresh economy, with Standard, Hardcore and Solo Self-Found variants; 3.29 shipped 40 challenges plus 8 Ruthless ones. A league is a project: replay the campaign, rebuild the character, re-enter the Atlas. The 2026 cadence has been roughly every three to five months.

Always-online is structural. Steam lists a broadband connection as a requirement for both Windows and macOS, and there is no offline mode. Trade is first-party: item search, bulk trading and a currency exchange. Stash tabs are the optional purchase that matters in daily play.

Broken Oath's loop is the Rupture: randomised maps across forests, deserts, snow peaks, swamps and the Underrealm, with weather, time of day, eight danger bands and Guardians with new attacks and phases. The observed panel shows three lives, checkpoints, a timer, rares remaining and objectives such as breaking a seal. Loot tiers are magic, rare, red unique and Primal. The 5 November news post separates online and offline characters — online heroes were reset for a rebuild, offline was untouched — which is the clearest structural difference between the two. What a Rupture costs in time, and whether there is a season or reset model, is not announced.

PoE 1 is neither a low bar nor an untroubled one. Its onboarding is a cliff, its campaign is compulsory each league, its balance moves under builds every few months, and its engine dates from 2013. Those are the openings.

• A build loop that survives the endgame. Six classes and a support system are a start; PoE 1's advantage is that its dials keep interacting after the campaign. Broken Oath needs that interaction, not just the vocabulary.
• An endgame with a reason to repeat it. Ruptures have modifiers, objectives, danger bands and Guardians; the Atlas has its own tree and a league economy behind it. Breadth is not required on day one; a clear ladder is.
• A launch state. A playtest reset and an online rebuild are normal in alpha. They are also the reason to hold judgement until an Early Access build is purchasable.
• The roadmap: full controller support, Steam Deck, more skills, more uniques, a deeper Forge. All are Early Access commitments; none is complete.
• A price and a date. Until both exist, this is a shipped game against a design document with a playable slice.

What Broken Oath does not have to prove is that it can be smaller. A single-player ARPG with offline characters, six classes and a map loop is a coherent product. It only has to be honest about which parts are finished.

These are not two answers to the same question. PoE 1 is a live service with a trade economy, a ladder and a decade of endgame systems stacked on one another. Broken Oath is a single-player playtest with offline characters and a smaller, cleaner loop. One is released and free; the other is unpriced, undated and still changing between builds.

If you want one of the deepest build games available today, and you do not mind broadband, a league reset and a wiki open in another tab, PoE 1 is the obvious pick. 3.30 on 13 November is a reasonable entry point, though it is announced rather than live on the date of this page. Broken Oath cannot answer that case yet, because its gem list, link rules and endgame depth are unpublished.

If offline single-player is the requirement, the calculation flips. PoE 1 has no offline mode at all; Broken Oath has offline characters in alpha and Steam lists it as single-player. That is a real difference, not a marketing one. Wait for a date, a price and an Early Access build before treating it as the replacement. If you need something to play tonight, play PoE 1; if you are waiting specifically for an offline ARPG, wait for Broken Oath.