Two years of early access finally have an ending in sight. Grinding Gear Games used its ExileCon 2026 keynote in Auckland to lay out everything inside Path of Exile 2's full 1.0 release, from the completed campaign and two new classes to a launch league built around raising armies and storming castles.
The full package was detailed in Grinding Gear Games' official announcement, with game director Jonathan Rogers walking through the campaign completion, the new classes, the league and a sweeping endgame overhaul on stage. Version 1.0 is designed to pull the whole game, which has grown through separate early access updates, into one refined whole for its full launch.
Headlining the update is the finished campaign, as Acts 5 and 6 close out the six-act storyline. The final chapters add 24 new areas, 18 new unique bosses and more than 20 new Champion Rare encounters, each with its own mechanics, and Act 5 takes the fight back to Oriath as the struggle against the Twilight Order and the Beast reaches its end.
The Shadow arrives as the first of the two new classes, built around daggers and an entirely new weapon type, traps. GGG describes him as follows: "The Shadow lurks unseen, using daggers, traps, and shades to bring down his foes." He introduces Stealth to the series — monsters cannot see a stealthed Shadow until he gets close, his dagger skills gain bonuses from the shadows, and traps laid while hidden detonate in the order they were thrown when he strikes. The Shadow launches with the Assassin and Infiltrator Ascendancies.
Alongside him stands the Duelist, the sword-wielding class locked in for the full release back at Gamescom. The Duelist masters Stances, opening with Ready Stance to empower his sword skills in different ways and upgrading into the deadlier Sand and Blood Stances. His two Ascendancies are the Knight and the Master-at-Arms.
Watch the full release trailer here:
Launching with 1.0 is the Conquerors of Wraeclast Challenge League, which sends players to war under Varek and his mercenaries to stop the ancient Blood Lord from awakening. Players recruit skilled warriors into their own army, scout more than 70 points of interest for recruits and unique missions, and conquer castles to crack open their treasury rooms. Those castles also hide a new type of crafting material that lets players reforge their gear.
The league deepens in the endgame, where players establish a stronghold, choose between three factions with their own fortress styles and troops, and team up with every other player in their faction to capture castles from rival factions. A new real-time system even lets players delegate Atlas progression to their own commanders, while a fresh endgame storyline digs into the dark secrets of the ancient Sanguar bloodline.
Beyond the headline features, 1.0 reworks the game's foundations. The Passive Skill Tree has had a major makeover with hundreds of new stats, and every Jewel Socket has been moved into the clusters; more than 40 new Unique Items arrive alongside revamps of over 70 existing ones, Support Gems have been massively rebalanced, and classes from the Mercenary to the Infernalist, Blood Mage and Acolyte of Chayula have received important reworks. Ten of the 12 promised classes will be playable at full release, with the remaining two still to come after launch.
The original game is not being left behind either. Path of Exile: Covens of Umbra pits players against ancient witches with a new Wickerman system built from the corpses of slain bosses, alongside overhauled endgame systems, and it launches on November 13 on PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store.
Path of Exile 2 leaves early access and fully releases, free to play for everyone, on December 11 (PST) on PC, Mac, Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation and Xbox. Early access players have been in through paid supporter packs since December 2024, but from that date the gates open to everyone at no cost.
