A surprising new Path of Exile 2 update will make some big changes to the endgame in the next few days, largely removing the need for the tower system and reducing the size of big maps. Despite the game’s popularity, players have largely reacted poorly to the way Path of Exile 2‘s towers have been handled by Grinding Gear Games, and while this new update doesn’t eliminate them entirely, it significantly alters their purpose and necessity.
Since the game’s early access release in December 2024, the development team has put a lot of effort into improving Path of Exile 2‘s endgame. This has included adding more late-stage runes, talismans, and soul cores for better endgame bonuses, but shifting the overall endgame gameplay to better accommodate the players is a major task that Grinding Gear has been planning for its upcoming version 0.4.0.
Path of Exile 2 Previews Version 0.3.1 Improvements
Patch 0.3.1 is planned for release during the week of September 29. According to a new update released on the game’s Steam community page, a major focus of the changes presented with this update will center around how the exploration of Path of Exile 2‘s endgame maps are handled. In a video that accompanies the update, game director Jonathan Rogers explained that major improvements to the endgame are still planned for version 0.4.0, but the development team is jumping the gun to implement endgame mechanical changes ahead of time so that the next big update can be mainly built around new content, as well as giving the team time to sort out any technical issues that these changes may present.
With the new update, players taking on Path of Exile 2‘s challenging endgame will no longer need to access towers in order to receive the benefits of tablets, instead being able to apply up to three tablet bonuses to the maps directly. Each tablet will have a limited number of times that it can be used in this manner, so players will need to replenish their stock, but towers’ new functions will include each dropping an extra tablet as completion bonuses. Additionally, towers will maintain their ability to show more visibility across maps.
Another major change coming to the game is that Path of Exile 2‘s map bosses will appear on all maps, eliminating an older mechanic in which the task for clearing some maps was centered around hunting down and eliminating all their rare monsters. With this adjustment, areas denoted by a map boss icon will instead contain more powerful map bosses than those without the icon, and they will also provide better rewards. Additionally, large map sizes are being reduced to speed up individual runs, and monster packs are being adjusted accordingly to prevent players at lower tiers from being unfairly swarmed.
- Released
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December 6, 2024
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Nudity, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Language, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
