Path Of Exile doubles up on free expansions this December
To keep you busy till the sequel
Impressive as Path Of Exile 2 looks, it's probably not going to land for another year. In the meantime, fans of the grisly action-RPG still have plenty to look forward to. Announced alongside the new game at ExileCon, they're doubling up on free expansions for this December. Launching on December 13th is a new time-limited quarterly update; Metamorph, asking players to build their own bespoke boss fights out of slime and monster guts. Landing alongside it is Conquerors Of The Atlas, a more permanent overhaul to Path Of Exile's massive Atlas Of Worlds endgame.
First up is the new quarterly league, Metamorph. It'll be replacing the current Blight league, which added a tower defence mini-game to the usual hack n' slash proceedings. Metamorph asks the player to engage in some mad science, hacking up monsters and boiling their viscera in a big vat of volatile green alchemic goo. Out of this vat will pop a custom boss battle, constantly shapeshifting to use the abilities of all the creatures you used in your alchemist's brew. Dangerous, but the bigger and tougher your Metamorphs, the more new loot they'll spit out on death. At its highest levels, you'll be able to create horrible fusions with the power of multiple gods; the ultimate in loot pinatas.
The other half of the December update is Conquerors Of The Atlas, a major rework of Path Of Exile's post-plot endgame. Replacing the hunt for the Shaper and the Elder (a pair of rival dimension-hopping demigods), players are now scouring the multiverse for a party of five former heroes driven mad by their obsessive hunt for loot and levels. When players first arrive on the Atlas screen, the map will look simplified - cut down, even - but defeated Conquerors drop key-gems which will unlock new paths to tougher fights, and increase the level of all surviving Conquerors, making for a non-linear escalation that you can tackle in whatever order you see fit. Unlike Metamorph, which will just be available for three months, Conquerors Of The Atlas will be a permanent addition.
The Metamorph league and the Conquerors Of The Atlas expansions both land on December 13th as a free update to Path Of Exile. The former will be available for all players to tinker around with from early in the main story, but only those who have cleared act ten will be able to set their sights on the Conquerors.