10. Path of Exile Mobile

While not everyone’s cup, GGG is giving their stab in the mobile market by introducing a new version of PoE, that is basically being done by a single dev.

The game still has a lot of room to improve and get it running well on every mobile phone, but it promises to be a great side-content for anyone who loves the genre.

The story is set as a prequel to both PoE 1 and PoE 2, a sort of origin story that takes place during Dominus’ dominion, and you’re a criminal that was captured by the Templars.

It will have the same challenge system as PoE 2, within reason, and will NOT have any form of P2W mechanics or predatory monetization, like it is often the case with mobile games.

Date of release is yet to be announced, but it’s assumed that will be released concurrently with PoE 2.

9.  Dodge Roll

During the showcase and all gameplays, it became instantly clear that now PoE 2 won’t be as reliant in movement skills, like Flame Dash, Shield Charge, etc., because it’s introducing a Dodge Roll mechanic (default key is space bar) to every class!

At the start of the rolling animation, you’re ‘immune’ to any projectiles or melee attacks, as long as they aren’t AOE. It’s not exactly an I-frame, so well known thanks to Souls Games, but it’s extremely rewarding based on the skill of the player.

It doesn’t have a cooldown nor does it have a cost, so you can roll around whenever you need it to move away from danger.

It will always move a set distance, regardless of how fast you move, but the animation may appear unusual if you move quickly.

And the best thing is, you can roll in Bear Form with the Druid, even in town!

8. 600 monster types and 100 unique bosses

In PoE 2, we will have a full host of new monsters and bosses to defeat. Though we might find a few similar looking monsters from PoE 1, every zone and every area will have unique and new monsters to fight.

They are now making it so acts follow a certain pattern of monster subsets and themes within that act itself, as though monsters evolved to live in that area accordingly.

And because of their new rigging system, they can make new bosses in a completely different way, and they can scale the monsters’ sizes easily and fluidly.

Fighting against giants who try to step on you as if you’re an ant, or trying to kill a massive bird that can eat you whole in a single bite, it’s all thanks to their new engine and rigs, that, though it was created for PoE 2, it isn’t exclusive.

And every zone in the campaign will have a completely unique boss, with different animations, characteristics, move sets, abilities and lore behind them.

Like Krutog, who is the Lord of the Kin, a goblin-looking species that adopted this giant as their lord, and likes feeding him exiles, due to his massive size.

The way they are incentivizing players to fight these bosses, unlike in PoE 1 which you’d always skip optional bosses, is by creating rewards that boost your characters if you kill them. Things that increase your Spirit or gives you +5 to all attributes, as a consumable boss reward.

7.  Spirit and mana changes

Speaking of Spirit, it’s a new mechanic that will rework how reservation in PoE 1 functions, by removing it from our mana pool entirely. Each character starts with 100 Spirit, and that’s often enough to use a big aura, but there are other ways of increasing our spirit.

There are a few ways of increasing it. Be it through boss rewards, like mentioned above, through the passive tree, and through Scepters, the Summoner’s weapon of choice. One of the lead designers, Jonathan, said that in the late game, it’s possible to get Scepters with over 600 Spirit.

Scepters are particularly interesting because they’re focused on granting allies buffs, like Auras often do, and with this Spirit system, you will also use it to summon your minions. Permanent minions will reserve a portion of Spirit, and you can have as many as you can fit. It will become a balance challenge to figure out how many permanent minions you want while still being able to use auras.

This change for reservation means that Mana is now an actual resource for casting, not just something you fix and never worry about later. Spells will have a higher mana cost for it, and will enable new builds and functionality to make proper use of Mana.

6. Currency Rework

GGG is taking the opportunity with PoE 2 to rework their crafting and currency system, and that’s happening in a few ways.

They’re introducing Gold (with auto-pickup, thankfully) to be the way you negotiate with NPCs and buy items from them. It shouldn’t be the way players trade at all, but it’s a common currency that will let you buy new and better items or even fix attributes or resistance issues you’re having with your gear.

And not only that, but they’re changing how Chaos Orbs works (it now removes a mod and augments another mod from an item, similar to Annul->Exalt), they’re removing Scour Orbs from the game, and are very much focused on improving loot drops, so that they matter when they drop.

It remains to be seen how this will pan out, as the game is too far out to be sure, but it’s an odd change nonetheless. Their vision here is that item bases should matter a lot more and that you can’t craft things from the ground up. And that seems to be in-line with another change they’re making, the removal of the crafting bench entirely.

5. Skill System Rework

We already knew they were changing the whole socket system, by removing them from equipment and putting them in a separate window.

It’s now confirmed that we start with 9 Skill Sockets that we can ‘6-link’ if we want to, with dedicated slots for the support gems being increased by 3 different Jeweler’s Orbs, Lesser, regular, and Greater, going from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 5 support sockets, respectively.

The biggest change comes from the fact that now skill gems do not drop, only support gems. What we get are Uncut Gems, that you can ‘craft’ into whatever skill you want to use, and you can pick from a ‘spell book’ of sorts.

And though you can still use and pick any skill in the game with any class in the game, there are clear favourites based on each class that will be more impactful or synergistic depending on your place in the passive tree.

Lastly, but no less important, they’re introducing a new system where they will utilize weapon swaps similarly to how Barbarians weapon swap in Diablo 4, seamlessly and to great effect, fully customizable, in order to deal the most damage possible, with different weapons and different skills.

For example, if you’re a Sorceress, and you want to use Comet, an icy meteor skill, but also use Arc, a lightning based skill, you can use 2 wands or 2 staves, that improve both skills separately, and make it so when you’re casting Comet, you’re using the cold-based staff, and the lightning one for Arc.

In practice, it’s a fantastic change that will open up a lot of build variety in a game that already has more builds than games even dream of having.  

4. 6 new classes and 36 new ascendancies

It wouldn’t be GGG if they didn’t come out with a crazy change and built our expectations to the maximum. Not only are they going to introduce 18 new Ascendancies to the old classes, but they’re introducing 6 brand new classes on top of it, each getting 3 Ascendancies as well, for a total of 12 Classes and 36 Ascendancies!

Of the new ones, players got to play with 4 of them during Exilecon, and we have a ton of information already from them. All classes, like they used to, respect the attribute divide from before, and so do the weapons that they favour (though, again, anyone can use anything, it isn’t class-locked).

These are all the classes, old and new, and the weapons that scale according to the stats that govern them.

• Marauder (STR) – Axes / Warrior (STR) - Maces and Slams
• Duelist (STR/DEX) – Swords / Mercenary (STR/DEX) - Crossbows
• Ranger (DEX) – Bows / Huntress (DEX) - Spears
• Shadow (DEX/INT) - Claws and Daggers / Monk (DEX/INT) - Staff and Unarmed
• Witch (INT) - Occult spells and Summons / Sorceress (INT) - Elemental spells
• Templar (STR/INT) – Flails / Druid (STR/INT) – Transformation (Werebear)

We have a lot of footage of gameplay with the Warrior, Monk, Huntress and Sorceress, each in a different act of the game. We’ve yet to know anything about their Ascendancies and specializations, but we do know that they’ll share starting location with their respective old class in the passive tree, and that the Scion won’t exist in PoE2.

3 – 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors Challenge League

It was also announced during Exilecon the newest PoE 1 league, set to start on the 18th of August.

From the trailer and the explanations, it will be a league using MOBA-like combat, mixed with Auto-chess or TFT mechanics.

Players will fight in an arena and will progress through a gauntlet or tournament of sorts, in order to reach the finals and win the big prize.

There isn’t much information yet, though we know you need to destroy all of the enemies’ totems to win a round. You can select and create your own team of NPCs to fight alongside you, and winning matches earns favour, which in turn can be used to buy equipment or field items for your NPCs.

The league is also introducing several new uniques, 14 new Support Gems, Passive Tree Tattoos that change your tree’s passive to grant you different bonuses, reworks to both the Guardian and Chieftain Ascendancies, and integration of Sanctum League, with tradeable ‘Forbidden Tomes’.

The league shows a lot of promise and Chris Wilson, Lead Game Designer and CEO of GGG, promised a lot of balance changes to come. It remains to be seen if they’ll nerf everything to the ground or not.

2 – Closed Beta Date

Though it’s one of the most significant facts here, it’s a sad one, but with good reason.

The Closed Beta will start on June 7th, 2024, and should run for 3 months, give or take. There’s still no release date for the actual game, but we do know that the Closed Beta will have the full new 6 acts available for play.

Speculation puts the full game release either in December 2024 or June 2025, to maximize their audience, with the hope of reaching over a million concurrent users during release.

1 – PoE 1 and PoE 2 will be separate games

Another bittersweet news, but one just as important, if not more important, than everything else here.

PoE 2 will no longer be a massive expansion into PoE 1. Somewhere along their development, the leads decided that the games will be too different and too jarring to merge, and that they can have both kinds of games, for both audiences, at the same time.

In response to this, they’re going to keep updating PoE 1 with anything that they believe fits and works for the game, like new monster rigs, environments, techs, even possibly leagues or skills.

They’re also committed to sharing all MTX seamlessly between both games, and everything you buy in one game, you get it for ‘free’ in the other game as well, without paying extra, as long as it’s applicable.

The new classes won’t be coming to PoE 1, and Scion will remain in PoE 1. We might be getting similar leagues in both games, or revamps and reworks of different leagues between them. Their plan, it seems, is to release their Leagues with a couple months of space, so you can jump from one game to the other, without feeling like you’re losing out, and getting FOMO’ed, from not playing the other game.

With the massive changes they’re bringing to PoE 2, it’s understandable why they needed to split it, but it made a lot of people disheartened to know that not only did they go back on their word, but also it meant that all the upgrades to character models and rigging system they promised won’t be in PoE 1, limiting the game’s aesthetics and growth. 

It is a major concern that PoE 1 will be forgotten over time, and on the flip-side, that people won’t enjoy the massive changes they’re introducing to PoE 2, and all that effort will be wasted. It remains to be seen how the game will play out, and we don’t really know how things will go. 

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