Path of Exile’s ExileCon Opens with New Announcements

Grinding Gear Games opened its first ExileCon fan convention in Auckland, New Zealand, for its action RPG Path of Exile with a keynote presentation featuring numerous announcements for the game. The biggest announcement is the upcoming 4.0.0 expansion that is being called Path of Exile 2. Path of Exile 2 is an additional seven-act story campaign that will be available alongside the current ten-act Path of Exile campaign. The two campaigns will work together as a single game with both campaigns ending up in the same Atlas of Worlds end-game content.

The Path of Exile 2 campaign is set twenty years after the death of Kitava, with society slowly rebuilding. The game features a set of Exiles (player characters), who fall into the same class archetypes as those in the original game but have access to nineteen new Ascendancy classes as opposed to those available in the current campaign. Path of Exile 2 will introduce a new generation of Path of Exile’s skill system, which will allow players to socket support gems directly into skill gems. It aims to remove some of the frustrations with the current system but keep the depth it is known for.

 

Path of Exile 2 Screenshots and Art

 

The new campaign will also include completely redone armour and weapon progression, with brand new character models and animations, though cosmetic items purchased with microtransactions will still be compatible. There will also be changes to the passive skill tree and other systems, with more details to be revealed at a later date.

Path of Exile 2 has not been given a release date, but Grinding Gear Games stated that it does not expect to begin a beta until late 2020. However, it will be continuing its regular every-three-month release schedule for regular Path of Exile expansions. When it launches, both the Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 campaigns will have access to the same expansion content.

 

Path of Exile 2 Trailer and Gameplay Demo

 

 

Speaking of expansions, Grinding Gear Games also announced its next 3.9.0 expansion, Conquerors of the Atlas, and the accompanying Metamorph Challenge League. The expansion builds on the Atlas of Worlds end-game mechanics, adding five new end-game bosses, a new support gem class, a rework of bow weapons, new items, and more.

The mechanic change sees players starting in the centre of the eponymous Atlas, with only fifty maps available at the start. More maps can be unlocked by defeating Conquerors and earning Watchstones, which can be socketed into the Atlas. These Watchstones affect that region of the Atlas, levelling up surrounding maps and revealing new ones. Players can change which Watchstones are socketed as part of their strategy for progressing through the Atlas.

 

Conquerors of the Atlas Expansion and Metamorph Challenge League Screenshots

 

Meanwhile, the Metamorph Challenge League will introduce a new NPC named Tane Octavius. A master alchemist, he is searching for what makes up the “self” as well as the cure or source for what he calls the “intrinsic darkness”. The league will see Tane collecting samples from selected monsters killed by players in each area. Players can then summon Tane and combine the samples to create a new metamorphic enemy to defeat. The samples determine the monster’s abilities and it will shift from form to form during the fight, providing rewards when defeated based on those samples that make it up.

The Metamorph encounters can drop a new type of currency-style items called Catalysts. These add qualities to jewellery items and come in multiple types, each of which relate to a specific type of item mod. The special end-game portion of the Metamorph league will let players create samples from the bosses of the Atlas maps, letting them create even more powerful foes and attain even greater rewards.

The Conquerors of the Atlas expansion and Metamorph Challenge League will be released for PC on December 13, 2019. It will then be released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the following weeks.

 

Conquerers of the Atlas Expansion and Metamorph Challenge League Trailers

 

 

Finally, Grinding Gear Games announced Path of Exile Mobile, which is currently an experimental version of Path of Exile for mobile devices. Path of Exile Mobile is based on the structure of the Atlas of Worlds content. It is being developed in-house by Grinding Gear Games and, like the main Path of Exile game, will be free-to-play with no pay-to-win elements. Grinding Gear Games also revealed that it is planning to launch a Mac version of Path of Exile sometime in 2020.

More footage and discussion from ExileCon about the new and upcoming Path of Exile content can be found on its official website and through Grinding Gear Games’ Twitch and YouTube channels.

 

Path of Exile Mobile Trailer