Grinding Gear Games is running down the days to Path of Exile 2’s launch, and has now shared both an Early Access trailer and a livestream with details on the game’s endgame content.
Ghidoran shared a summary of their livestream on the Games subreddit, and with their thanks we’ll share some of the essential information below.
Path of Exile 2 launches at Early Access on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, at the same time, this coming December 6, 2024. Six of the twelve classes will be available, as well as three of the six Acts (levels).
If you’re a new player, it will take 25 hours to finish the three Acts, and you’ll be at level 45 when you start the endgame content. There is also a Cruel Difficulty, that will be much harder, but will also take shorter to play the three acts, leaving you at level 65. As of now, Early Access Path of Exile 2 will have 400 monsters and 50 bosses.
You will have to pay $ 30 to play Early Access Path of Exile 2. However, in keeping with the principles Grinding Gear Games keeps, when you get into the game you will also get $ 30 in in-game credit for microtransactions. So it isn’t exactly free, but it’s as close to it as Grinding Gear can provide for you.
Unfortunately, Sony will not allow microtransactions to carry over to or from other platforms. So if you play this game on Xbox or Steam, you can transfer them to each other’s platform using your Path of Exile account, but you can’t do the same if you play it on PlayStation.
Seeing as Path of Exile is the same type of action RPG that Diablo is, Path of Exile II’s endgame is conceptually similar to Diablo IV’s. There’s an element of randomization and remixing of existing content, with the hopes that you will want to challenge yourself.
The idea is there is an Atlas that you can access by slotting an in-game item called Waystones. The farther away you travel from the center of the Atlas, the progressively harder it gets. If you fail a mission, you can’t retry and you have to go around it.
The rest will be of interest if you’re already a hardcore fan, but if you don’t know much about this game, you may enjoy watching the Early Access trailer. The narration comes from a key character in the game’s lore: Doryani, the Queen’s Thaumatugist.
Doryani experimented with magical gems and humans, at first to make his civilization, the Vaal, wealthy and prosperous beyond their means. Later, as his experiments became grimmer, he sought out unending youth for his queen, and immortality for himself and his people.
In Path of Exile lore, Doryani made one final experiment with disastrous consequences for everyone around him. The Vaal civilization fell, with millions dying, and his queen was trapped in a nightmare realm. Doryani’s fate is itself a mystery, as those surviving Vaal refused to talk about what he did and what happened next.
As it turns out, we will know find out exactly what transpired to Doryani and the Vaal.
If you enjoyed that description, you can check out the Path of Exile II‘s very NSFW Early Access trailer below.
