Новини
Everything we know about the Path of Exile: Affliction expansion, out on December 8
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Diego Nicolás Argüello
The expansion's main attraction is centered around the Viridian Wildwood. During your ventures, strange holes will emerge in the ground, inviting you into a dark, sprawling forest. Each step you take leads into uncharted territory, as you're forced to literally traverse the woods in order to reveal the area around you. Thankfully, Wisps are there to guide you toward points of interest — treasure, tough but highly rewarding boss encounters, and the starring characters of the Affliction expansion.
The big reveal is the new Ascendancy classes. If you're unfamiliar with Ascendancy classes, these are specialty sub-classes that become available in the later half of Path of Exile's campaign. After meeting a series of requirements, you're able to expand your character's capabilities with a specific Ascendancy skill tree. For example, the Ranger can opt for Deadeye, Raider, and Pathfinder, while the Templar can turn into an Inquisitor, Hierophant, or Guardian, to name a few examples.
Ascendancies add significant depth to how you decide to shape your character. Now, for those inclined to push that limit even further, Affliction's Ascendancy classes offer yet another skill tree to spend points on, albeit focused on the Viridian Wildwood. Here's the gist: Once you've found one of the three NPCs in the Viridian Wildwood, they'll give you quests to complete. After you've fulfilled them, you'll be able to spend points in each NPC-specific Ascendancy class. These are Warden of the Maji, Warlock of the Mists, and Wildwood Primalist.
The latter two quickly grabbed my attention. The Warlock's main passive ability allows you to inspect enemy types from corpses. So, if you take down a wolf and inspect them, you'll have a damage buff against Beast enemies, while also receiving reduced damage from them. As Rogers explained, you can only select one at a time, and you always need to inspect a corpse first. Some enemy types, like Eldritch, can't be scanned out in the wild.
Thankfully, the corresponding NPC in the Viridian Wildwood will sell you specific enemy-type corpses for you to take with you and scan before, say, fighting a boss that corresponds to one of these special enemy types. Alternatively, you can also summon the corpse you purchased to fight alongside you.
The Wildwood Primalist is less macabre in nature. Unlike the Warlock and Warden, you're free to switch the available mods in its skill tree, creating hybrid combinations. It definitely falls onto the more enthusiastic side of things, yet, once you have a grasp of how the Viridian Wildwood works — including the fact that there are three types of Wisps, which can follow you outside of the Viridian Wildwood and take control of enemies, making them stronger and enhancing their rewards — that extra experimentation element will keep you entertained for a long while.
When asked about how respec would work (the action to recover spent skill points), as well as how points are distributed across all three Ascendancy classes, the team said that respeccing individual points on the fly will cost one Regret (An ‘Orb of Regret’ is a currency found in the game), as opposed to the usual five Regrets required for standard Ascendancy skill trees. Thankfully, if you change your mind and want to switch to any of the other two Ascendancy classes, all you need to do is find them in the forest and change the class for free. Also, you'll retain the points you have with each of the three classes even if you swap between them.
Affliction also brings a plethora of changes to Path of Exile's core and metagame. The Ultimatum League (in-game trials against masses of enemies), launched back in 2021, is finally being integrated into the core experience. Grinding Gear Games has made quite a few adjustments to it in terms of balancing, and you can expect new mods and rewards.
In addition, there'll be Ultimatum-specific passive skills to unlock in your skill tree. One of them allows you to add more rounds and exceed the default limit of ten, but with the downside that you won't encounter a boss on the 10th encounter, nor be able to select a debuff for the extra rounds. This is just one example of the ways in which Ultimatum is keeping things varied in its return.
In terms of the metagame, a new mechanic called Transfigured Gems will unify Quality Gems, Labyrinth Helmet Enchants, and Unique Threshold Jewels into a single system. These will work as alternative versions of existing skill gems, with a spin on their functionality and balance compared to the originals.
The team shared a few examples of some of the new skills available, including one called Raise Zombie of Falling, which literally has undead corpses falling down the sky and dealing damage on impact, as opposed to raising them from a corpse. To get this gem and others, you'll have to interact with the Divine Font at the end of the Eternal Labyrinth. There, you can choose to turn a skill gem into one of three Transfigured variants. But there are other uses as well, such as adding experience to gems or sacrificing them for treasure keys to open Izaro's chests, for example.
Grinding Gears also shared an extended look at some of the classes that will be available in Path of Exile 2. As somebody who's been playing and covering Path of Exile for years, and having attended previous events like this, it was intriguing to see PoE 2 as the primary focus. In a way, it's a subtle testament that the studio is confident in this new vision for the franchise, while simultaneously enforcing that priorities are starting to shift toward that future.
Short snippets of classes like the Warrior, Monk, and Huntress showcased the stand-out prowesses of each against enemy groups. In the process, one can start to dissect how some of the new elements of the sequel will come together. Palm trees crack and fall against the sand after the stomping of a massive foe. Dust and sand are lifted off from the ground after the hit of an axe or the palms of the Druid's bear form. But the environmental effects aren't just for show. During a boss fight, a lever activates a harpoon that deals massive damage to the stunned creature. It's clear that the surroundings you plunge through will play a bigger part in the experience.
The use of elemental skills and focus on synergies is once again a vital tool in your arsenal, and the Mercenary class excels as a strong example. Using different types of crossbows — which can act like automatic rifles, shotguns, and snipers — the Mercenary offers a playground to experiment with different ammunition types. Incendiary rounds are perfect for scorching enemies, while permafrost can create ice crystals if you shoot to the ground, or even frost walls that inflict damage to foes around them if an enemy breaks them to try and get to you.
At times during the presentation, it was easy to forget that this was still Path of Exile 2. The action on display, akin to games like Remnant: From the Ashes but from a top-down view, felt quite different than playing as, say, the Marauder or Witch classes. As Rogers explained, it's the first time that the team has made a class like this, but it's all to enforce that whichever you choose, you'll have a different gameplay experience. The use of mods, in this case for crossbows, as well as the frenetic pace of enemies will feel familiar to Path of Exile players. But some of the changes, including a dodge roll and WASD moment available for all classes (which can be toggled on and off), will definitely shake things up for veterans of the first game.
Path of Exile 2 already paints a promising picture. Yet, there's still a long way to go until it becomes available to play. Path of Exile: Affliction is a reminder that the decade-old ecosystem is still alive and breathing. Grinding Gear Games continues to push its boundaries by adding extra layers of complexity to an already overwhelming jenga of features and past League additions, which are the equivalent of seasons in other live-service games.
Despite the clear intentions of the team to start switching gears towards Path of Exile 2, the predecessor isn't going anywhere. As mentioned by Rogers, some Leagues from Path of Exile won't be available in the sequel initially. The campaign will be similar in length, taking place throughout six acts as opposed to ten from the original, and there'll be an Atlas of Worlds available for the endgame, too. But it's safe to assume it'll take a while for Path of Exile 2 to catch up with the breadth of systems and mechanics in place of its sibling. Until then, there's plenty of uncharted territory to traverse in Path of Exile: Affliction and beyond — you just need to follow the Wisps.
You can download Path of Exile right now on the Epic Games Store, just in time for Affliction.