Path of Exile 2 leaves paid early access on December 11, 2026, with a free-to-play 1.0 release that adds two classes, the Shadow and Duelist, and the Conquerors of Wraeclast launch league. Grinding Gear Games detailed the release at ExileCon 2026, revealing army recruitment, castle building, and sieges alongside changes to character builds and the endgame.
PC players will be able to join through Steam or Grinding Gear Games' standalone launcher without buying an early access supporter pack.
Acts Five and Six finish the campaign, adding 24 areas and 18 major bosses. Act Five returns players to Oriath to confront the Twilight Order and the Beast. The new campaign bosses also carry into the endgame across more than 25 new maps.
Shadow and Duelist bring daggers, traps, and swords
The Shadow arrives with two Ascendancies, Assassin and Infiltrator, plus daggers and stealth mechanics. Enemy vision cones and circles show where monsters can detect you, allowing attacks from outside those ranges to earn bonuses. Stealth has a cooldown that resets on a kill, supporting a sequence of ambushes as you move between enemies.
The class also introduces eight trap types. Traps placed while stealthed wait until you reveal yourself, then trigger in the order you threw them. That sequence determines how their effects combine:
- Freeze Trap into Concussive Trap: Freeze enemies, then shatter them.
- Poison Gas Trap into Concussive Trap and Fire Trap: Spread the gas before igniting the cloud.
- Fire Trap into Concussive Trap: Fan the flames on enemies already burning.
Entering stealth also leaves a shade that blinds and distracts monsters. Shades can copy melee attacks, while the new Darkness resource powers attacks. Eclipse consumes enough Darkness to temporarily apply stealth bonuses to all attacks.
The Duelist brings swords, including skills such as Cyclone and Hemorrhage. Its Knight Ascendancy recruits a Squire whose equipment and skills you can choose. The Knight can also use War Banners and Mounted Charge, riding a golden chariot of light that knocks enemies aside.
Equipping the Knight's Squire
Conquerors of Wraeclast puts armies on the Atlas
Conquerors of Wraeclast adds a strategy layer throughout the campaign and endgame. More than 70 campaign points of interest let players recruit different soldiers. Before battles, you arrange troop formations, then join the fighting directly to defeat the enemy commander. Supplies and rations keep those troops healthy between encounters.
Progress leads to larger sieges, league bosses, and a Stronghold that you build and defend against assaults. Players join one of three factions, sharing their allegiance with everyone else who chooses that side. Capturing rival castles earns rewards and opens nearby hunting grounds, special maps with valuable modifiers.
Unique commanders can take troops into Atlas maps on your behalf. You can assign routes through multiple maps or give them Tablets to use. The commanders keep the gold they find but return worthwhile items, adding another way to collect loot while managing your army.
Preparing troops for a siege
League bosses also drop Treasury keys, providing access to loot and a new crafting material for Reforging. This system lets you choose which item modifiers to replace with fractured modifiers. Those replacements remain locked during later crafting, giving the sieges a payoff beyond the battlefield.
A smaller Atlas tree and a fresh 1.0 start
The Atlas skill tree shrinks from more than 300 nodes to about 70. Character progression changes too: the reworked passive tree alters routes used in Path of Exile 2 builds, moving Jewel sockets away from outer travel nodes and deeper into skill clusters.
Other build changes include:
- Around 40 new Unique items and more than 70 reworked existing Uniques.
- A Support Gem overhaul that combines elemental penetration gems into one.
- Changes to Mercenary reloads and the Acolyte of Chayula.
A new Death Summary screen breaks down what killed your character. That should make it easier to identify the threat you need to prepare for before another attempt, particularly while learning the new campaign bosses and league encounters.
Existing early access characters will move into a separate, permanent league called Early Access, keeping their levels, gear, and stash. They will not carry into the new 1.0 Standard league, which starts from zero for everyone.
