When you enter the endgame content provided by the very popular Path of Exile 2 Early Access, the first thing you need to focus on is how to earn corresponding skill points for your Atlas passive tree faster and easier.

Normally, you can get some Atlas passive skill points by defeating the final boss on the map or completing tasks, but in the latest Dawn of the Hunt League, you can also get additional skill points by finding and cleaning Corrupted Nexus.

The addition of this new endgame mechanism has gradually improved the shortcomings of the lack of depth in the endgame content of POE 2 that has been criticized by players before, and has increased the curiosity of many players who love challenges to explore it.

With the exception of the first Corrupted Nexus in the game, the locations of the Corrupted Nexus maps are completely random, So in this guide, we’ll show you a few ways to find and clean up Corrupted Nexus this difficult content and quickly earn Atlas passive skill points.

Corrupted Nexus Overview

In short, Corrupted Nexus is a special map in Atlas that contains some corrupted monsters and a Beyond boss that you need to defeat. This map only appears in zones and biomes affected by combined corruption, so you can identify it by the neon red corruption icon.

To enter Corrupted Nexus, you need to prepare a Waystone with at least 4 modifiers to unlock it. It is worth mentioning that the tier and modifier number of Waystones you have after entering the endgame is not high, so you really need to buy POE 2 Currency to increase and effectively roll the modifiers you have.

However, if you fail to complete this Corrupted Nexus, it will disappear, so make sure the modifiers of Waystones will not interfere with your exploration. In addition, the monsters and bosses in Corrupted Nexus are more challenging than those in the same level maps, so you also need to upgrade and reinforce your own build.

Location Of Corrupted Nexus

Although there is a very obvious red icon on Corrupted Nexus map, you cannot immediately see the location of this special map under the cover of Fog of War. Usually, you may need to unlock all the explorable maps on 2-3 screens to encounter a zone containing a Corrupted Nexus, which is very unfavorable for you who want to effectively farm Atlas passive skill points in it.

But fortunately, there are now two tricks to help you quickly determine the location of Corrupted Nexus and the direction you are heading on Atlas. First, you need to find a Corrupted Nexus, a black stone spire that is clearly corrupted. If you can’t find the exact location of the stone spire, you can keep shrinking the endgame map until it is the smallest, and then identify its location through a black miasma.

In addition, you can also expand the entire POE 2 endgame map to the maximum and check whether each tower is surrounded by red corruption, because in general, there is a prime chance of a Contaminated Nexus being present near a Contaminated Tower. Through these two methods, you can clearly determine the approximate location of this profitable map and start exploring it.

How To Complete Corrupted Nexus?

Once you have found the exact location of Corrupted Nexus, you can start to plan to farm Atlas passive skill points in it. In this process, you can get 2 Atlas skill points every time you unlock and complete a run with the required Waystone.

So you need to repeat the cycle 15 times to get the 30 Atlas skill points that Corrupted Nexus can provide you. The remaining 10 are hidden in other special maps and battles, such as you and Xesht, Kosis or Omniphobia, etc. However, keep in mind that you can’t use a Tier 15 Waystone to unlock Corrupted Nexus and gain 30 Atlas skill points all at once.

The sign of completing a Corrupted Nexus map is that you have cleared the map of Beyond Bosses. There are currently only 3 Beyond Bosses on this map - The Skittermind, The Eater of Flesh, and The Pale Angel. They all have over 10,000 health points, but are not very resistant to elemental damage.

So when fighting them, be sure to prioritize casting elemental attacks that can cause great damage to them, and upgrade your defensive gear in your build as soon as possible to ensure your own safety during longer encounters. After you defeat them, you have completed the task of cleansing Corrupted Nexus.

After cleaning, nearby corrupted maps will be transformed into cleansed maps, which contain multiple monsters and bosses to challenge. On top of that, these maps will also reward you with Fracturing Orbs, which is one of the most valuable currencies in the game.

Above is an overview of the new endgame mechanics called Corrupted Nexus in Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt League, and a look at how you can explore. Hopefully, with the help of this guide, you can find this special map more quickly and farm Atlas skill points more easily to make your build more powerful. I wish you a happy game.

As you explore in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you will definitely have to deal with the topic of mapping correctly, whether you are in the leveling stage or the endgame stage, and mapping will require numerous Waystones of different levels.

Once your inventory is low, your exploration may be forced to slow down or stop, especially in high-level challenges. So players have been looking for some ways to store Waystones stably in POE 2.

It is worth celebrating that the process of obtaining Waystones in the endgame stage of Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt League has been greatly simplified and the drop rate is higher, making it easier to keep Waystones.

This means that the previous methods of obtaining Waystones in the game are no longer used, so this guide will introduce you to some effective strategies and steps to keep the number of Waystones within a stable range.

1. Prioritize Boss Maps

In the current POE 2 game content, the most effective way to maintain Waystones is to use some of the high-value Waystones on some more profitable endgame map nodes, such as Boss Maps, which will give you a 100% chance of picking up Waystones of a higher tier than Waystones used to enter the map.

For example, if you enter a Boss map node with a Tier 10 Waystone, after you defeat the boss in it, it will drop at least one Tier 11 Waystone. Although you may need to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the offensive and defensive capabilities of the build, this method is the best way to quickly increase your Waystones by one Tier because it has no drop rate.

In addition, even if you enter a map node without a final boss but with a final rare monster, you will at least get a Waystone of the same Tier as you unlocked the map. In short, as long as you complete any Boss Map, you will get at least one Waystone of the same Tier or higher.

You may also get some Waystones from chests or monsters while exploring, but be aware that this strategy does not work for Tier 16 and above Waystones.

2. Use Atlas Skill Nodes that Increase Waystone Drop Rates

Once you complete the quests given to you by Doryani in POE 2 endgame, you will unlock some nodes on Atlas skill tree, some of which will provide you with this buff for increasing the drop rate of Waystones. For example:

• Constant Crossroads: Increases the number of Waystones by 20%.
• Fortunate Path: Increases the rarity of Waystones by 100%.
• The High Road: Increases the chance of getting higher Tier Waystones by 20%.

Once you complete Tier 4 maps, you will be able to unlock all three nodes, and you will have a very efficient experience farming Waystones, as long as you can use them wisely. In addition, if you have previously unlocked other Atlas passive skill points, you can respec them using POE 2 Gold.

3. Perfect Your Endgame Build As Early As Possible

In the endgame exploration, one of the most common confusions among players is why Waystones are consumed so quickly? One of the key reasons is that the build you use is not the most perfect endgame build, which will cause you to die frequently in battles with bosses, rare monsters, or even ordinary monsters.

Once you experience death, all Waystones and POE 2 Currency you just invested in this map will be burned. So the advice here is to go to the player community or social platform as soon as possible to check the best endgame build that suits you best, so as to reduce the number of times you die in battle.

Similarly, some of the combat methods you used in the leveling stage may not be applicable in the endgame, so you also need to change your combat strategy and game style to expand your possibility of earning more and higher-tier Waystones in these maps.

4. Investing Currency In Waystones

Although in the current POE 2, many players have always been impressed by the currency such as Regal Orb and Exalted Orb, which can only be used for trading or crafting, but if you use it to upgrade Waystones, you may be surprised.

You can think of Waystones as a kind of craftable item in the game. The more currency you invest in it, the more rewards you get. This is a very beautiful, virtuous circle, but the premise is that you don’t die in the exploration.

For Tier 1-5 Waystones, you can invest in Orbs of Augmentation and Orbs of Transmutation, which allows you to upgrade your regular items into magical items. For tier 6-10 Waystones, you can invest in Regal Orbs, which turn them into rare items. Regal Orbs, POE 2 Exalted Orbs, Vaal Orbs, and Delirium Instills allow for maximum enhancement of tier 11-16 Waystones.

As you level up your Waystones, you may also roll over the modifiers on them. There are two main types of modifiers you should be looking at: modifiers that increase the drop rate of Waystones (by at least 200%) and modifiers that increase the rarity of items in the exploration area, both of which will make your mapping process very profitable.

In addition, modifiers that increase the number or rarity of monsters in the exploration area are also good results to roll, but this means that you will face a higher difficulty when you enter the map unlocked with this Waystone, so please do it according to your ability.

The above are some methods and strategies you can use to keep your Waystones in a stable range in POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt League. Hopefully, you can use this guide to farm Waystones more effectively and explore more interesting endgame stages with them. Have fun playing!

Since the early access release of Path of Exile 2, players have been discussing its complexity and high difficulty, because it is not easy to understand how the game’s level system interacts with each other, even those who have been exploring the original game for a long time cannot fully understand it.

After POE 2 launched the latest Dawn of the Hunt league a few weeks ago, the addition of many new mechanisms and new content has made players more confused about the game, especially the interaction effects of the three types of charges (Power Charges, Frenzy Charges, and Endurance Charges) and other game resources in Path of Exile 2.

Since the source and casting of Endurance Charges in POE 2 are all related to Warrior build, and with Dawn of the Hunt League bringing the new Smith of Kitava Ascendancy to this class with strong survivability and damage capabilities, this guide will provide an introduction to Endurance Charges for players who focus on this play style.

How Endurance Charges Works?

In fact, you can think of Endurance Charges as a kind of buff effect in POE 2, which will give some auxiliary attacks some buffs. The specific way it works is that you need to obtain some Endurance Charges through the skill gems, support gems, gear and activated passive skill nodes you place in your build, and then use the skills, support gems or gear that can consume this charge to achieve the effect of gaining buffs.

It should be noted here that only gear that clearly indicates that it can interact with Endurance Charges in the item description can participate in this operation. In addition, the three types of charges cannot be interchanged because the interaction effects they have are completely different.

Not only that, the effectiveness of the bonus Endurance Charges is related to the skill that consumes it and the rarity and level of the gear, so here it is recommended that you buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the important items in your build as much as possible.

Sources Of Endurance Charges

As mentioned above, the main way to obtain Endurance Charges in Path of Exile 2 is from the skills of Warrior class, but that is not all. The following are all the specific sources of Endurance Charges and their specific effects.

• Magma Barrier (Warrior Skill): When you hold up a shield, it fills with magma for a short time. If you block during this time, magma will be sprayed at the attacker, granting them 1 Endurance Charge.
• Break Endurance (Support Gem): When a supported skill completely destroys an enemy’s armor, there is a 40% chance of gaining an Endurance Charge.
• Cranial Impact (Passive Notable): Stun buildup is increased by 30% and you gain an Endurance Charge when you apply a Heavy Stun to a rare or unique enemy.
• Grit (Passive Notable): When you gain an Endurance Charge, you have a 5% chance of gaining up to 1 maximum Endurance Charge instead.
• Resonance (Keystone): It will convert the types of charges you get on the map activated by this Keystone: Power Charges to Endurance Charges, Endurance Charges to Frenzy Charges, and Frenzy Charges to Power Charges.

What Consumes Endurance Charges?

Once you’ve earned some Endurance Charges, you need to choose the right skills or gear to use them, either for devastating damage or solid defense. Here are the main ways you spend Endurance Charges in POE 2.

• Infernal Cry (Warrior Skill): When casting this skill, your character will let out a warcry, and then consume all Endurance Charges to gain a strengthened, additional attack. And enemies in the warcry range will become more vulnerable and will burn when they die, causing super fire damage to remaining nearby enemies.
• Seismic Cry (Warrior Skill): It also causes your Warrior to let out a high-damaging warcry that knocks back nearby enemies, leaving the character in a safe standing position. If you hit an enemy that is already Heavy Stunned, your next Slam is empowered and you can land an additional attack per Endurance Charge spent. If you miss, the cooldown of this skill is reset.
• Shielding Cry (Warrior Skill): If there are enemies nearby when you cast this warcry, subsequent shield attack skill abilities will consume all Endurance Charges to gain an empowered additional attack.
• Charge Infusion (Skill): When activated, you gain powerful buffs based on the active charges, including 12% increased defense with Endurance Charges. However, maintaining this buff requires you to expend all your Endurance Charges every few seconds.
• Rally (Support Gem): Supports melee attacks used by the user. Supported skills consume all durability charges when used and restore a percentage of your maximum life for each Endurance Charge spent.
• Nebuloch Execratus Hammer (Unique Mace): This powerful weapon relies on Endurance Charges when used to deal a whopping 100 Chaos Critical Damage to enemies.
• Elemental Infusion (Amazon Ascendancy Passive): It gives Amazon build an active skill called Infuse Weapon, and when you cast this skill and consume an Endurance Charge, you gain 2 Fire Infusion.

How To Increase Maximum Endurance Charges?

Before you start to build the best build for your character, the default maximum number of Endurance Charges you have at a time is 3. However, in actual exploration, this number cannot provide effective benefits for skills or gear that consume high Endurance Charges, so you can try the following methods to increase your maximum Endurance Charges.

• Endurance (Passive Notable): Allows you to add two Maximum Endurance Charges.
• Guts & Grit (Passive Notable): Each one adds one Maximum Endurance Charge.
• Belt Enchantment (Vaal Orb Outcome): Can add 1 Maximum Endurance Charges.

The above is an overview of Endurance Charges in the current POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt League and how to use them. I hope you can use this charge that can greatly upgrade your survivability and damage ability to gain a better exploration experience in this new league and rank among the top. I wish you a happy game!

In December of last year, the beloved Path of Exile released its sequel, becoming one of the most concurrently played games on Steam. Although the player base churn in POE was not too severe at the time, the number of daily active players and total players was declining.

But now, nearly three months after the release of POE 2, a new event has brought numerous players back to the game: during the Legacy of Phrecia event, the number of concurrent players reached a peak of 91,948, while POE 2 was only 80,879 at its peak, which is far more than the sequel!

But strangely, the number of concurrent players of the sequel was not greatly affected during the event, so where did all these players come from? And although POE may never break the heights set by POE 2, what are the reasons behind this phenomenal popularity? Will we see this again in the future?

These questions are the topics that are currently being focused on in the player community and social platforms, and this guide will answer these questions for you one by one based on the existing information and leaks. Whether you are a loyal fan of the original game or a player who is exploring the sequel and hesitating whether to enter POE to try it, the answers here may give you a correct direction.

Reasons For The Popularity Of POE

First of all, let’s take a look at why the original POE has set off such a phenomenal popularity, that is, because its game content has not been updated or improved for a very long time. Previously, Path of Exile would update four leagues every year, and each one would bring a lot of game content updates to players, such as new mechanisms, new bosses, and new POE 2 Items.

Before the early access release of POE 2 last year, in order to ensure the normal operation of the sequel, the developer used all the work teams that originally worked on POE 1 to develop POE 2, which led to the delay of the league that should have been updated in the original game. Although POE 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur League was highly praised by players before, players lost interest in it during this long period of repeated grinding and exploration.

When this Path of Exile 2 was released in advance, it was thought that Grinding Gear Games would return the staff of the original game, but they did not. They have been solving some minor problems that POE 2 players have been struggling with, and officially announced that they will continue to use this team to develop the sequel until the release of Patch 0.2.0.

This caused some players who were loyal to the original game to protest because the developer broke the promise to treat both games equally to all players. After that, the players in the original game had no hope for new leagues or new patches, and jokingly called this the longest drought period in POE.

But fortunately, after announcing this news, the developer released a notice about the Legacy of Phrecia event to be held in POE, which will last for a month. And announced that it would destroy all existing classes and replace them with new game-changing ascendancies, which means that all 19 ascendancies will be redesigned, and those gear that could only be upgraded with POE Currency have also received some upgrades and improvements.

This was unexpected for all players, and made players feel that they had wrongly blamed Grinding Gear Games before, because this kind of experimental design also requires a very long time to study and explore. So many players who had given up the original game before began to return, and some players who were used to the old design also wanted to try these new game rules and gameplay, which gave this long-dormant game a new lease on life.

Why Hasn’t The Number Of Concurrent Players In POE 2 Decreased?

Although POE and POE 2 are both games of the same genre and have the same unique systems, they are fundamentally different because the original Path of Exile has decades of updates and quality of life upgrades, with the depth and level design that most pleases players, and it is difficult for new games to catch up with this depth of game content in a short period.

Especially the endgame of POE 2, although it uses a lot of data from the original to determine what players want in it. For players who have only tried this sequel, this exciting and difficult battle makes it a different game experience, but for fans of the original, the endgame here is not pleasing to them.

So the explosion of POE has little impact on the player group of POE 2, because the two groups essentially like completely different things, and there will be a steady stream of new players during the current POE 2 Early Access period, because they all want to try the extremely difficult gaming experience of farming POE 2 Currency.

Most importantly, one of POE’s most impressive feats is that it can retain players longer than other games. On July 1 last year, Settlers Of Kalguur League was able to reach 228,398 concurrent online players, which is the highest record for the game. At the end of July, the number remained at 163,118, which is a very outstanding number for a game that has existed for more than ten years.

The last question is, can POE maintain this super high popularity and move forward steadily? The answer is yes, because the sequel is currently only released in Early Access, and the official release time and game content are not completely determined, which leads to the players becoming bored again after the experience time is over. At this time, a POE with a better game experience and similar gameplay may become their next prey.

As you all know, after more than 6 months of POE 3.25, the developers finally responded to the subsequent league update of POE 1, but we did not get any news about the 3.26 expansion, but instead announced that POE 3.26 would be postponed indefinitely. This news has caused a lot of anger among fans of the original game. Perhaps in order to calm the anger of the players, GGG recently chose to launch a new event, Legacy of Phrecia Event, to divert the attention of the players.

The event starts at 12 pm PST on February 20, 2025 and lasts until 1 pm PST on March 23, 2025. Players will face a series of unique challenges and experience major changes in the class system.

To perform better in this event, you must prepare an excellent build. Here we’re sharing our event starter build, Pyroclast Mine Polytheist, to help you get a head start in Legacy of Phrecia Event!

Build Overview

Recently, seeing the rise of Polytheist ascendancy class, we wanted to use it to make a build that uses skills with both Projectiles and Nova tags. The only skill that meets this requirement is Pyroclast Mine.

With Pyroclast Mine, we can hit the same enemy multiple times with a single explosion. First the initial explosion of Mine, then the projectile AoE for each explosion, and finally these fireworks-like explosions. If you like flashy builds, this one is for you.

What we’re showing here is mapping with Pyroclast Mine using a 4-Link setup, so how far can this setup take us?

In reality, since we need to stick to a budget and make sure we can complete Legacy of Phrecia Event with the least amount of POE Currency cost, our equipment is pretty crappy, focusing mainly on life, resistance, and a few attributes. Tremor Rod in particular is definitely the most cost-effective choice for this build, and should at least get you into red maps.

In addition, we only use 2 Auras, Grace and Summon Skitterbots. Since Flammability is tied to Arcanist Brand and Detonate Mines is tied to Automation, it will trigger automatically.

It is recommended that you can get Detonate Mines Skill Gem as early as possible to save extra clicks. If you don’t want to invest in it, there is a Mine Mastery that also allows you to detonate mines while moving. You can unassign it when you don’t need it.

Although we don’t use Astral Projector in this build, so sometimes the explosion won’t fall on the boss, the overall damage feels good, especially when we get Ascendancy, which will be more powerful.

Ascendancy

For Ascendancy, we would grab Devout of Lunaris first. The quality of life brought by this node is unparalleled. However, if you want more defense, then you can get Devout of Garukhan or Devout of Solaris first, and finally Devout of Ralakesh, mainly because we are already using Charged Mines Support.

Passive Tree

Now, let’s move on to the passive tree for this build. We have different levels of the tree, so if you don’t know which nodes to choose, you can follow the upgrade tree here. We usually start with some damage and life nodes here, and then go to Shadow. Also, get all Mine nodes, Life nodes, and Reservation nodes here, and then finish the build at level 95.

Gem Setup

Next, we have different gems set for endgame and early/mid game. You can re-check them when you are ready to lower your health.

If you are using Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage, you can change it here. However, it is not recommended that you switch to it before getting Mana Reservation node and equipment.

Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage does much more damage than normal Mine, but it also reserves much more mana than normal Mine. So, until you can switch to Transfigured Mine, just use the normal Mine. They function the same, the only difference is the amount of damage.

In addition to Grace and Summon Skitterbots, this build also uses Discipline. It is connected to Arrogance to preserve life instead of mana, so that we can do Pain Attunement when life is low, giving us 30% more spell damage.

Once you get Whispers of Doom anoint on your Amulet, you can use another curse, which is Assassin’s Mark. Before getting Pyroclast Mine, you can upgrade as you usually do with Templars, that is, use Rolling Magma, Holy Flame Totem and Flame Wall.

Gear Setup

Now, to the most important part, the gear.

The gear for this build is very simple, you just need to focus on getting life, resistance and attributes. Among them, Mine Throwing Speed ​​should be made on your weapons and helmets, which will make a huge difference and provide you with a smoother map experience.

You can also try to get a belt with Mine Throwing Speed, or make your own using Essence of Zeal. Once you get enough POE currency, you can slowly upgrade your gear.

Since this is an evasion character, it has low health, so getting energy shields is also important. So we use Evasion Base or ES Base as our armor, combined with Grace and our Ascendancy, our evasion chance should be pretty high.

Another important stat is spell suppression chance. Although there are some on the passive tree, it should be easy to limit spell suppression if your gear is all rare. What’s more, you should also have your Eldritch Mods at this point.

Note that the endgame setup of this build is expensive. It’s only for those who really want to invest in the build and try some of the hardest content in the game. If you’re just using this build to accumulate some Divine Orbs and move on to the next build, then I think you can stop at the mid-game setup.

Victario’s Influence is a great body armor for this build. You can even get up to +4 gem levels with Corruption alone. Additionally, it provides higher reservation efficiency, which is very necessary for Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage, and the increased AoE and aura effects are obviously nice to have as well.

Finally, Replica Dragonfang’s Flight is great for boosting our damage, as it provides 3 additional gem levels. This reservation mod is great, as it also reduces life reservations for Discipline.

Anyway, that’s all for this Pyroclast Mine Polytheist build. Hopefully, the servers will be stable during Legacy of Phrecia Event, and we’ll see you there!

During the period of Path of Exile 2 Early Access, do players still remember POE 3.25, which was released in July last year? Yes, Settlers of Kalguur league lasted for over 6 months, but we still had no news about the next league.

However, recently GGG finally responded to this issue. Unfortunately, they did not specify the release time of POE 3.26, but brought the bad news that the next league will be postponed indefinitely. Yes, this league postponement is indefinite, and it may last for a long time.

Therefore, here we are mainly to help you understand the actual future of POE 1, and why I think you should be prepared for POE 1 to be completely closed after patch 3.26.

The Player Group Split Between POE 1 And 2

Two weeks after the release of POE 2, there are a few things that you should be able to see clearly. On the one hand, there is a clear split in the players, and on the other hand, there is a rather large difference between POE 1 subreddit and POE 2.

Looking at the data from the past few years, the number of players in POE 2 Early Access is on average higher than any POE 1 league. There are more than 1 million people registered for Early Access on Steam alone, which is at least $30 million in revenue, and that’s considering people pre-ordered the minimum $30 Supporter Pack.

However, for GGG, it’s not just about money, they have to keep players happy to retain them. Of course, they can also afford to lose players, because these people will still participate in POE 1.

What we want to emphasize here is that there are actually two types of players who have diametrically opposed views on the game. Some POE 1 players like the fast-paced endgame experience, with wide explosions appearing on the screen, blowing up the map one after another, and they only need to wait a moment to click on POE Currency and rare items dropped by the boss. But there is another group of people coming from games like Elden Ring who want the endgame to be like POE 2 campaign. These are completely different audiences.

POE 2 Bugs Appear Frequently

At the same time, there are some serious issues with POE 2 that affect the gaming experience and need to be resolved urgently. I mean some of these issues may even make your computer explode, turn your GPU into a smoke screen, or you will wake up to find that your account has been hacked.

The most serious problems are not game balance, but bugs and crashes. One of the things is the careless Windows 11 24H2 update, which caused a lot of CPU problems in the game, especially a serious crash on our loading screen. When players open portals between maps, we have to enable and disable multi-threading, or sacrifice half of the CPU capacity to run this game.

We must understand that it will take Microsoft a few years to replace the useless DEI to solve these problems. Anyway, we can only hope that GGG will be able to fix their game after this bad Windows update. After all, it is just one of the serious problems they are currently solving.

1.5 months have passed since Early Access release, and POE 2 players are still eagerly waiting for a ton of fixes and endgame issues that need to be changed.

POE 1 Might Be Ready To Terminate?

Meanwhile, POE 1 subreddit is on the verge of a nuclear explosion, because more than 6 months have passed since GGG released POE 3.25 update, and we have never seen such a crisis.

Before, the developer was crucified for testing a new idea in a few leagues, but now suddenly everyone wants to see him resurrected. To be honest, we do live in the age of prophecy, and maybe we may see it soon.

But what’s worse is that more people suspect that this may be their farewell to Path of Exile 1 development. Because unless the two development teams are completely separated, you can’t maintain league updates for 2 games every 3 to 4 months. Chris Wilson himself admitted this as early as 2019.

Developers May Be Stretched Thin

You can feel the pressure from embedding the core content of the old game into the new one. They had less than a few weeks to make the endgame, which they have been working on for years.

I mean, it’s probably been 5 or 6 years since we saw a snippet of POE 2 Act at ExileCon 2019. And the carefully polished 3 Acts we see today took 6-7 years. Rumor has it that there will be more details on these contents after the official release.

So, like we mentioned before, GGG made millions of dollars from POE 2 Early Access, but their only ongoing income comes from POE 1 League, which also requires development and maintenance costs. It’s a gray area to draw the line between which one must take priority now.

After the release, the developers have clearly shown less enthusiasm for completing the remaining 3 Acts of POE 2. Honestly, ask yourself which is more important? POE 2 endgame or POE 2 Acts 4, 5, and 6?

I believe most people want to fix the endgame and continue its development. But this is where I am deeply critical. If you want to make a brand new game, then why bring back the endgame mechanics from the old game that require you to kill and clear quickly? Many POE 2 players want the endgame to be slowed down, but these mechanics are the same requirements of the old game. So, GGG must decide which group of players they must cater to. If they want to separate the game, then they should completely avoid the content from POE 1 in POE 2.

My point is that if GGG pushes hard now, both games have quite strong momentum, they will succeed in winning over both player bases. This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and this has been proven many times.

The Success Of POE 2 Sacrificed The Development Of The Previous Game

There are many people who are deeply concerned about POE 1. Because Settlers of Kalguur is the best state of POE 1 league update so far, many players returned because of the update of patch 3.25.

But the thing is, currently GGG is still using developers from POE 1 team to develop POE 2. These developers are literally the best developers in any action RPG.

Nevertheless, GGG has good reasons to allocate more resources to POE 2 at the expense of the expansion of POE 1. Like I mentioned before, POE 2 currently has more players and everyone is a paying customer. Second, POE 2 has been a tremendous success at the beginning. Despite the criticism, once they start adding crafting, endgame mechanics, and challenge leagues, the scope of success of POE 2 will be much larger.

Final Thoughts

However, this is not a priority at the moment, GGG can always balance the game, but for a large group of POE 1 players say, 6 months without any content, it’s really hard! So it is recommended that GGG first put all resources into fixing the major issues in patch 0.2.0, and once that is done as soon as possible, they can save the rest for the release of POE 3.26. In this way, Path of Exile can keep the momentum and effectively complete both without losing more players.

In short, prioritize the right things and let the right people do the right job to improve efficiency. This may help the two games run at the same time. GGG must decide and plan the overall strategy to usher in a better future. Looking forward to seeing the early arrival of POE 3.26!