The action RPG world rumbled when Grinding Gear Games announced Path of Exile 2 during the opening ceremony of ExileCon 2019.

The Announcement And Updates On POE 2

Mere weeks after Blizzard’s showcase of Diablo 4, Chris Wilson and a few other top-level GGG employees walked on stage, announced Path of Exile 2 and played the in-development product in front of the crowd. The people in the venue, Twitch chat, even Reddit, were all floored at the incredible edition and reinvention.

This huge expansion would introduce to one of the best ARPGs out there: two campaigns, one overhauled game. Even Chris couldn’t believe the reception.

The rest of ExileCon 2019 went swimmingly. Various developers spoke about their unique philosophy and development process while working on Path of Exile. The best racers in the scene competed to kill Act 5 Kitava’s first and ExileCon 2019 ended.

From November 2019 to April 2021, GGG remained silent on POE 2’s progress, continuing to release consistent expansions to Path of Exile 1.

Suddenly, in April 2021, GGG spoke out with an update on Path of Exile 2 and showcased portions of the new campaign’s second act, a desert area. Again, it looked fantastic. You can see the updated animations, the breathtaking terrain, two new weapons, the crossbow, the spear, boss, health bars, and so on. And community response to the content on display has also been very positive.

However, all POE 2 information went dark once again after this showcase. We waited for an update, but none occurred. We continued to wait and wait until in August 2022, GGG unveiled they’d be fully elaborating on Path of Exile 2 during ExileCon in 2023, which would be held on July 29th and 30th in Auckland, New Zealand.

Also Read: My Fastest Way To Farm Blight Maps In POE 3.21

The Numerous POE 1 Expansions

Since then, we’ve heard absolutely nothing about Path of Exile 2. In fact, nothing truly new has been unveiled since the Act 2 showcase in April 2021 more than two years ago.

So, what’s the deal? For those who don’t know Path of Exile’s developers Grinding Gear Games (also known as GGG) well, you may think they’re hiding something, something negative. Likely, that’s wrong. Instead, GGG is traveling a path untraveled by many game developers. These days, they’re working, waiting, and staying silent on the Path of Exile 2 product. This way they can focus on delivering and surprising their audience they have in the past.

All the while, they’ve been dropping decent sized expansions to Path of Exile 1. Since announcing Path of Exile 2 called the 4.0 expansion by some in the community as it’s going to be a massive addition and overhaul to the main game, GGG has introduced the following 13 expansions to Path of Exile.

Please do note, every single update also includes other minor but meaningful content, such as balance changes, new unique items, new skill gems, engine improvements, divination cards, new models, updated graphics, and more. These are only the highlights.

3.9 Conquerors of the Atlas in December 2019 was the introduction of a new endgame system, involving Sirus and the Conquerors of the Atlas, multiple different crafting tools and the metamorph build a boss mechanic. It also introduced Awakened Support Gems and new bow skills.

3.10 Delirium in March 2020 added the Delirium mechanic, which changed mapping forever and let us use cluster jewels on our passive skill tree to make our own passive skill trees.

3.11 Harvest in June 2020 gave us one of the most powerful and deterministic crafting systems in Path of Exile. That still exists in the game to this day although being in a nerfed state.

3.12 Heist in September 2020 rolled out a brand new chunk of endgame in the form of Heist, allowing us to discover new forms of every single gem in the game, old and new loot, brand new item bases and upgrade a host of rogues in an endless experience similar to delving and mapping.

3.13 Echoes of the Atlas in January 2021 presented players with the maven endgame fight and the idea of capturing bosses then fighting them all at once in a Grand Arena, The Maven’s Crucible. Plus, it added the Atlas Passive Skill Tree, allowing us Exiles to customize our endgame experience to our liking, unlike any other game out there. Plus, there is Ritual, a new way to barter and earn items while killing monsters.

3.14 Ultimatum in April 2021 surprised us with an amazing risk reward mechanic overseen by the wickedly sly Trialmaster and added multiple new powerful gems to the game like Reap, Exsanguinate, Petrified Blood and Corrupting Fever. All are used to this day in a variety of builds.

3.15 Expedition in July 2021 dropped in a gripping new narrative a brand new content system called Expedition and heavily reworked numerous pieces of character power. The changes are still controversial to this day.

3.16 Scourge in October 2021 summoned forth The Scourge faction and allowed us to clear our areas a second time. But the second run was in a literal hellscape. The league also heightened the skill ceiling with new forms of Uber content for Blight, Legion, Breach and Delirium.

3.17 Siege of the Atlas in February 2022 brought forth another huge improvement to Path of Exile’s mapping system and gave us four new Pinnacle Bosses. It also added Eldritch Currency to the game, which let players of all types craft in their gear. Plus, it began the revamp of rare monsters with the introduction of Archnemesis.

3.18 Sentinel in May 2022 added new ways to buff monsters using Sentinels, completely reworked rare monsters has just alluded to before, added seven Uber versions of bosses to the game and let us play with recombination a new crafting system that smashed items together to create something new but familiar.

3.19 Lake of Kalandra, in August 2022, introduced a new map building mechanic to the game, allowing us to enter the Lake of Kalandra and make powerful rings and amulets. It also further reworked where monsters completely changed the Beyond mechanic, replaced the old monsters with the Scourge, rebalanced hundreds of unique items, swapped the value of Divine Orbs and Exalted Orbs and changed around Harvest Crafting.

3.20 The Forbidden Sanctum in December 2022 launched a roguelike dungeon into Path of Exile, added one of the first character power enhancing account bound items into the game, further reworked rare monsters and walked back on the term Archnemesis, massively buffed a set of end game unique weapons, retooled jewels, ailments and a few other systems and added Ruthless a new game mode for Path of Exile with extreme item scarcity and numerous reworked or removed mechanics.

Finally, we’ve reached the present. 3.21 Crucible in April 2023 added the Crucible weapon combining mechanic to the game, reworked two former large mechanics Breach and Abyss, did a pass on passive skill tree masteries and completely changed up to ascendancies - the Pathfinder for the Ranger, and the Saboteur for the Shadow.

Those are the 13 major expansions to Path of Exile 1 since Path of Exile 2’s announcement at the end of patch 3.8 Blight in November 2019.

Why GGG Is Staying Quiet?

Although GGG has been almost entirely silent about Path of Exile 2, they cannot stop talking about an updating Path of Exile 1 because they are the same game folks.

Path of Exile 2 is a giant expansion to Path of Exile 1. Both campaigns will lead to the same endgame. All this work they’re doing and all this great content they’re adding and iterating on will probably be in Path of Exile 2 in some form.

Us Exiles will be able to slay the Maven as a werewolf. We’ll be able to zoom through maps with a crossbow shouting about bolts. We’ll have boss bars for our favorite foes, from Sirus to the Eater of Worlds. And we will progress through the core campaign battling Merville, Dominus, Kitava and more with the updated gem system.

So, why the silence on the Path of Exile 2 from GGG they’d rather show? It’s a meme in the Path of Exile Community to answer every problem minor or massive with the line: POE 2 will fix it.

GGG stated during their initial and second announcement that Path of Exile 2 will indeed solve some things problems with this skill gem system, poor animations, outdated graphics, outdated design and numerous other areas of the game. But they’ve backed up those statements with evidence and ideas. We know how they’re seeking to improve their game. Because when they’re asked and choose to answer, their answers are concrete about Path of Exile 2 and frank about Path of Exile 1. They’re adding and experimenting in Path of Exile 1 while developing and iterating Path of Exile 2.

Otherwise, they’re silent. They don’t want to talk boldly about Path of Exile 2. They want to show us how they’re going to make an amazing expansion and overhaul to Path of Exile. They take the “when it’s ready” line very seriously when it comes to Path of Exile 2 and we’re going to witness that firsthand on July 29th of this year as we did in April 2021 and November 2019.

When Chris Wilson walks out on stage at ExileCon 2023, he may be passionate, tearful even, but he will be confident in the game. He’s about to showcase to the world as he was at ExileCon in 2019. He believes in his team of developers. Grinding Gear Games is putting in the time and effort to ensure Path of Exile 2 will outlast the competition of new and old.