Jonathan Rogers

Seeing as Path Of Exile 2 has already undergone a curious journey from 'sequel released as expansion' to 'actual sequel' in the four years since its announcement, not to mention years of delays, what's one more diversion? The action-RPG's developers announced last night that the closed beta planned to start on the 7th of June will now not. They think they could have something ready by then but it wouldn't be up to their standards, so what's the hurry?

Path of Exile 2 will no longer have its beta release this summer.

After dying several times to an introductory worm boss that Path of Exile 2 had me face, I started to wonder if I was missing something while playing as the Ranger class. The grind to this early-level boss hadn’t unlocked a ton of Skill Gems for me, and the few I had slotted weren’t combining together to make a power combo like I had become accustomed to during the Affliction League that’s currently ongoing in Path of Exile. Speaking with other, much better players than myself who I met at the event it turned out I wasn’t the only one that took a try or two on the boss. It was time to get back to the grind and come back at it with better gear.

Last week, Path of Exile 2’s Game Director Jonathan Rogers sat for a livestreamedinterview with streamer Kripparrian, and the two discussed PoE2, what’s new, how they’re evolving and balancing combat, monster designs, adding WASD combat and much more. This comes as today, there is another live stream with Rogers and Mark Roberts happening today.

Path of Exile 2's game director Jonathan Rogers is closing out 2023 with a livestreamed interview with one of Path of Exile's major content creators, Kripparrian, later today. 

Last month Path of Exile 2 was selected as the #9 Most Wanted game in PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted. The sequel to the long-running ARPG Path of Exile is coming soon, and with work on Path of Exile 2 now well underway, we flew to New Zealand to talk to developers at Grinding Gear Games about how they're approaching a game that needs to be firmly rooted in the original while offering both new players and veterans something fresh and different.

As part of today's livestream, Grinding Gear Games revealed one of the new classes coming to Path of Exile 2 next year, the Mercenary. The class uses a crossbow and incorporates lessons learned from shooters, including adding WASD movement to the ARPG.

In a livestream today developer Grinding Gear Games made a slew of announcements, including a first look at a new playable class in its upcoming ARPG Path of Exile 2: the mercenary.

Grinding Gear Games has revealed the name of the next expansion and Challenge League for Path of Exile – Affliction. It launches on December 8th at 11 AM PST for PC and December 13th for Xbox and PlayStation. Check out the announcement trailer below, though be warned of the presence of creepy crawlies.

Despite having a new sequel, Payday 2 has maintained an average of almost 10 times as many players as Payday 3 on Steam for the past [period of time]. The 10-year-old co-op FPS briefly swapped places with its successor when it launched last month, but as Starbreeze continues to work on the list of problems players have with Payday 3, players have returned to a game they know is great.

At PAX West 2023, I had the chance to check out the latest build of Path of Exile 2, which is hitting its first beta next June. The sequel to the award-winning ARPG Path of Exile, PoE 2 looks to be a natural evolution of that formula, and after spending some time with it, I honestly cannot wait for the full release.

During Gamescom 2023 week, developer Grinding Gear Games has been showing off quite a bit of gameplay for its upcoming action RPG Path of Exile 2. One of the newest videos released for the game focuses on giving us a look at some gameplay for the Druid class. Check it out below.

Path of Exile 2 is quietly one of the most anticipated action RPGs around. Grinding Gear Games recently took the wraps off its big sequel, in the process confirming that it will be a standalone release. With gamescom 2023 in full swing, we were able to get a much closer at the hotly-anticipated Diablo IV competitor, including a ton of new gameplay.

Just as Blizzard is facing backlash following the release of Diablo 4 Season 1, developer Grinding Gear Games has revealed new gameplay and the closed beta date for its upcoming action-RPG Path of Exile 2. But despite the frosty reception to the new season, it seems Diablo 4 fans haven't been won over by the Path of Exile sequel just yet. 

Path of Exile 2 will follow an "Elden Ring sort of direction" rather than Diablo 4's "MMO path", according to the game's director. 

Diablo 4's magnificent stallions may be more powerful than ever, but the game itself is in a tough spot. It's always had its disgruntled players, but the blow done to its reputation by the almost universally reviled pre-season 1 patch has seriously soured the mood in the game's community. Although Blizzard apologised for the update's disastrous launch, it didn't totally backpedal on it, and the mood in spaces like the game's subreddit—once a hive of hype— is still bitter.

Path of Exile 2 made a splash this week at ExileCon, Grinding Gear Games’ annual convention for all things Path of Exile. Along with showcasing Act 3, the developer confirmed that the sequel would be a standalone game, instead of an update to the existing title. A closed beta is set for June 7th 2024, and it seems that fans will have more than enough to test.

Path of Exile 2 promises to be a dramatically different game from its predecessor despite the initial similarities. The changes are such that, during the Path of Exile 2 reveal at ExileCon 2023, it was revealed the sequel will now be entirely standalone from the first game, contrary to previous plans. The loot-chasing RPG game also looks set to solve many of the issues of the first as Grinding Gear Games makes smart alterations for Path of Exile 2, and PCGamesN speaks to game director Jonathan Rogers about how those choices came to be.

At ExileCon keynote, Grinding Gear Games announces a game split and extensive additions.

Highly-anticipated sequel Path of Exile 2 has been delayed.

Path of Exile 3.22 is titled Trial of the Ancestors, and, following the release of Diablo 4, developer Grinding Gear Games is once again showing why it’s the standard-bearer for seasonal content in the ARPG space. The new Path of Exile league brings back the best addition to the RPG game in years, adds a new mode inspired by auto battlers and sports, and packs in a wealth of endgame content to keep us busy while we wait for Path of Exile 2.

Grinding Gear Games dropped several new details for Path of Exile 2, the follow-up to its popular free-to-play action RPG looter. It was meant to be an update, with a new campaign and Ascendancies leading to the same endgame. However, Path of Exile is now its own game with unique balance changes, endgame and more.

Path of Exile 2 combat is looking really good so far. The Path of Exile 2 reveal at ExileCon shows how developer Grinding Gear Games is making some really interesting decisions to help create the next generation of combat for its beloved loot-chasing RPG game. As part of this, Path of Exile 2 creative director Jonathan Rogers tells PCGamesN how Grinding Gear Games looks at other genres to see what interesting ideas might suit its game well.

As Path of Exile 2 rears its head for the first time in a long while at ExileCon 2023, it does so in a world where the action-RPG is more popular than ever. In the decade since its predecessor launched, these top-down, loot-driven games have grown to become some of the most popular and best RPG games. Now, alongside the likes of Diablo 4, Lost Ark, and the upcoming Last Epoch, Path of Exile 2 proves that Grinding Gear Games is still pushing the genre forward in exciting new ways.

Path of Exile has long run in parallel to Diablo. When the original launched back in 2013, it was pitched as a fresh alternative to the then-troubled Diablo III. Now, with Path of Exile 2 in development and Diablo IV struggling, their identity once again seem inextricably linked.

World of Warcraft has a category of items called meta gems, which go in special gem slots and can only be equipped if you have a specific number of other gems already slotted into your gear. They can have powerful bonuses, but in practice they mostly just make me frustrated enough to yell at my computer as I trek to the auction house to buy another round of color coordinated gold sinks.

Path of Exile 2 will not be released this year in any form. The plan, as it stands, is for a closed beta test to begin 7th June 2024.

It's been nearly four years since our last significant dose of Path of Exile 2 news, but Grinding Gear Games took to the stage today to finally pull the veil back on the ARPG sequel during today's ExileCon 2023.

Get ready to die lots in Path Of Exile 2, as developers Grinding Gear Games have told me that both the regular and Hardcore difficulty modes of their upcoming, now standalone sequel to their enormously popular ARPG are going to be a whole lot more challenging than before - both when it comes to the campaign and the end-game afterwards. Bosses, in particular, will pose much more of a threat this time round, as studio co-founder and Path Of Exile 2 creative director Jonathan Rogers says the big monsters you fought in the first game's campaign were, in hindsight, "pretty anemic".

"It's been a really long time coming," Grinding Gear Games' co-founder and Path Of Exile 2 creative director Jonathan Rogers tells RPS, but their new action RPG will be getting its first closed beta on June 7th 2024. The news was announced at tonight's ExileCon, where the developers also showed off a big new chunk of the game that focused on its two new classes, the monk and the sorceress - and it looks to be shaping up very well indeed. As for a final launch, however, Rogers isn't quite ready to put a date on that yet.

Grinding Gear Games debuted a lovely big chunk of Path Of Exile 2 this evening, taking us through a section of Act 3 of its campaign and showing off two of its six new character classes: the Monk and the Sorceress. With almost 30 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay, we got to see exactly how they work in practice, and most importantly, we got a big long look at the monk's beautifully choreographed staff twirling melee attacks. Yes please and thank you. I have to say, this is instantly more exciting to me than biffing skeletons with my Druid in Diablo 4, and I'm very pumped indeed to try the Monk out for myself when Path Of Exile 2 enters its closed beta in June next year.

When Path Of Exile 2 was first announced in 2019, it was billed as an extra large expansion patch to the original game - an update, so to speak, rather than a standalone sequel. Since then, however, the scope of Grinding Gear Games action RPG has grown so much in the intervening years that they've now decided to make it a "completely separate game". The news comes from tonight's ExileCon, which also marks the first time we've seen Path Of Exile 2 in action since that original announcement.

Path of Exile 2 has graduated into a full standalone sequel to the original Path of Exile, fully shaking off its origins as an expansion pack.

Blizzard's plan to replace Overwatch with Overwatch 2 proved to be just as messy and confusing as it sounded, but it did at least do one thing right by ensuring that players could transfer over all their skins and cosmetic items to Overwatch 2. Today Path of Exile's developers made the surprise announcement that they're not replacing Path of Exile with its sequel, which was the plan when Path of Exile 2 was announced back in 2019. Path of Exile 2 is now going to be a wholly separate game, Grinding Gear announced at ExileCon today, but it's one-upping Blizzard by making cosmetics both forward- and backwards-compatible.

When Path of Exile 2 was announced four years ago, it was going to expand on and overtake Path of Exile 1. The original action RPG's campaign was still going to be playable, but PoE's transformation into Path of Exile 2 would add in a new campaign and alter the endgame—sort of like how Overwatch 2 replaced Overwatch. Well, plans change.