Path of Exile: An Expedition into some big changes
Grinding Gear Games has just revealed a new round of content for Path of Exile during a recent Livestream, which includes a new Expedition expansion and the return of the battle royale mode--which is out now for a limited time. Along with new content for the 3.15 expansion, the developers announced some sweeping quality-of-life changes coming to the game, some of which could be considered controversial to the state of the game.
The main conceit of the Expedition content is that you'll be exploring a new landscape filled with hidden chests and undead monsters hiding underneath the surface. While this seems quite close to the standard overworld exploration loop, what sets Expedition apart are the various excavation sites scattered around the land. The Expedition expansion adds a new activity where players bomb artifact sites for gear.
Commissioned by the Kalguur, players will place traps along the ground to unearth loot and other artifacts. But these explosions also cause ancient Kalguur to rise from the grave and strike back. Players can also use explosives to blow through walls and find secrets, or pick up even better loot by unearthing treasure chests. Once players have the artifacts, they can then haggle with the Kalguur for more loot. Players will need to balance getting a deal with not pissing off the NPC they’re trading with. Expeditions can also reward you with items with an all-new kind of defensive item: wards. Working independently of armor and energy shields, wards outright negate a fixed amount of damage from one hit every few moments. This seems like it'd pair well with high-evasion builds, so that when you're unlucky and do catch that one big hit, it'll be greatly reduced or even nullified entirely.
Grinding Gear Games is making a lot of big changes with Expedition. Players will gain access to 19 new Skills and Support Gems. This will give players more ways to build their characters, even outside of the new Expedition mode. The studio will also rework the game’s Flask system, which previously forced players to slam their fingers on keys repeatedly. Before the change, some players even created homemade devices to help press multiple keys simultaneously, the developer said.
There's also a new suite of skills and spells intentionally designed to shake up Path of Exile's meta, potentially leaving popular character builds in the dust. There's one new attack skill designed around each of the nineteen ascendancy classes, and each one looks extremely cool. A multitude of new skill gems brings new playstyles to Expedition and the greater game, the most interesting perhaps being a Necromancer gem that lets players go “all-in” on a king-size reaper minion. Instead of commanding an entourage, this skill lets players make one giant minion that handles everything. Save more POE Chaos Orb to help you get much fun in game.
In addition to all the expansion content, Path of Exile: Royale is returning as a weekend mode. It’s being completely rebalanced outside of the core Path of Exile, so players’ skill trees and options will look quite different. There will be spectator mode, leaderboards, and more.
