Path of Exile 2 made a splash this week at ExileCon, Grinding Gear Games’ annual convention for all things Path of Exile. Along with showcasing Act 3, the developer confirmed that the sequel would be a standalone game, instead of an update to the existing title. A closed beta is set for June 7th, 2024, and it seems that fans will have more than enough to test.
Director Jonathan Rogers told IGN that the full game would be available in the closed beta “to get the balance correct at launch, because once you have something a certain way, players are very resistant to changing it, in particular, in a downwards direction. So therefore, we have to ensure that we’re going to have a good beta that tells us everything we need to know about that.”
If that weren’t enough, the closed beta will run for the length of a League. “It won’t just be like one act or something like that. It’ll be the whole game, and we’re going to run it for as long as we would run a league at least, so months so that we know for sure what the economy looks like, what everything looks like once it shakes out. ‘Cause it does take quite a while for people to kind of realize what the most efficient things are, what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Calling it the “most efficient” and “funnest” way to play, Rogers said it’s also required to “nail the balance of skills. “That’s going to be a challenge, and with a lengthy beta, we should be able to achieve that.”
Path of Exile 2 is thus confirmed for PC, though it could skip Xbox One and PS4 for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. It’s a new six-Act campaign with several new Classes and Ascendancies to play. There are also 240 Active Skills, 600 different monster types, 1500 Passive Skills, and 100 bosses to fight (who drop Spirit for permanent stat increases). There’s also co-op support for up to six players.
