Path of Exile Upcoming Content

In a low-key forum post, Grinding Gear Games outlined their plans regarding Path of Exile's future content. The game's 3.0.0 expansion is only one challenge league away and is said to add a brand new Act Five to the game. There are no additional concrete details available for now, with a promise of an official announcement somewhere in mid-February.

When I initially started playing Path of Exile it was in Open Beta and had but three acts(Act Three still unfinished) and no end-game to speak of. Now, it is leagues above that and is still being actively worked on. With so many MMOs shutting down and games being canceled lately, it's nice to have a success story.

Here's what we know so far about the next updates:

At the moment, most of our team is working on the major 3.0.0 expansion which contains Act Five and some other surprises. We have three goals in mind as we plan the timing of 3.0.0's release:
  • To create our best expansion ever, with a higher quality level than any previous release.
  • To ideally not disrupt our existing 13-week schedule.
  • To have flexibility with the date that we start the Beta.
When the Breach league ends, we'll be launching another challenge league (2.6.0) in line with the above schedule. The Beta for 3.0.0 will start at some point during this league (likely near the middle). We expect that the Beta would run until the end of the 2.6.0 league.

So for the 2.6.0 update, we're planning:
  • Some balance changes to keep the metagame fresh. An example is that we have lined up significant buffs to one-handed melee weapons.
  • A new challenge league. We don't want to spoil what it is yet, but it's certainly appropriate for the last league before the new era of 3.0.0.
We're planning to formally announce full details of these various releases in mid-February. All of the dates in this post are provisional - we want to be transparent with what we have in mind, but please expect stuff to change as various things are finished earlier or later than expected.