Earlier today Grinding Gear Games held a livestream to discuss the future of Path of Exile. PoE fans will no doubt be excited to hear that there’s a lot more PoE on the way.
First up is Path of Exile 2. The biggest question regarding the sequel is exactly that, in what ways is it a sequel as it’s carrying over a wealth of content from the original game. From GGG:
Path of Exile 2 is a new seven-act storyline that is available alongside the original Path of Exile 1 campaign. Both the old and new storyline lead to the same shared Atlas endgame. Path of Exile 2 retains all expansion content that has been created over the last six years and introduces a new skill system, ascendancy classes, engine improvements and more.
In addition to the shared content and parallel end-game activities, there are other notable additions and improvements.
- New equipment
- The entire progression of armour and weapons has been redone from start to finish, alongside entirely new character models and animations. All of your old micro-transactions are still compatible.
- Revised skill-gem system
- Path of Exile 2 introduces the next generation of Path of Exile’s iconic skill system. Support Gems are now socketed directly into Skill Gems, removing many of the frustrations present in the old system while maintaining all the previous depth. It’s now possible to six-link every skill your character uses.
- 19 New Ascendancy Classes
- Path of Exile 2’s characters are a new set of Exiles who fall into the same class archetypes as those in the original game. As such, they can pick from a set of 19 new Ascendancy Classes that differ from the old ones that are still available in the Path of Exile 1 campaign.
Path of Exile 2 is not near release. In fact, GGG has said that a beta won’t arrive until 2022 at the earliest. For now, here’s the latest trailer.
As Path of Exile 2 is still a ways off, the team is continuing their regular, quarterly updates for the original game. The next expansion, titled Ultimatum, launches next week (April 16th on PC and April 21st on consoles), and brings with it a risk and reward style of play for long-time fans.
The ancient civilisation of the Vaal was built on sacrifice. They understood that in order to attain great power, great risks must be taken. On behalf of a Vaal entity known only as Chaos, the Trialmaster seeks to discover challengers who are willing to make immense sacrifices in the pursuit of power. As you survive each of his challenges, will you risk it all and accept his next Ultimatum?
Ultimatum is built around the idea that you take on challenges to earn rewards which you can then risk, to earn even greater rewards. The gambling nature of gameplay should present some truly interesting scenarios for fans along with a wealth of emotions ranging from elation, to heartbreak.
Our Take
Path of Exile is not only an excellent ARPG, it’s one of the most pure examples of a developer offering a meaningful free-to-play experience, while implementing micro-transactions in a non-intrusive, nor predatory, way. It’s simply fantastic and we love seeing the team continue the innovation for the community.