Path of Exile 2 is now a fully standalone game with a closed beta scheduled for June 2024
Long awaited sequel Path of exile 2 is delayed.
While the action RPG was expected sometime later this year, developer Grinding Gear Games has now confirmed that the game won’t be ready for closed beta testing until June 2024.
Requested by Eurogamer why the project and the original beta had to be postponed, director Jonathan Rogers said: “It’s a lot of things. I, more than anyone else, was also hoping for a beta date in 2023. We were, frankly, extremely naive to think we would hit the dates we had before.”
To sweeten the news, the team did confirm that Path of exile 2 – which started as an extension for Path of Exile before breaking free to become a separate standalone game – offers closed beta testing from June 7, 2024, and testing will “definitely take months”.
“And in terms of what (the beta testing) will be: It’s going to be the game, the whole game. It’s not going to be just ‘oh here’s the first act’ or anything like that — it’s going to be the game.
“The beta is the last chance we have to fix any remaining balance errors,” he added. “Action RPG communities are pretty serious business when it comes to balancing changes once the game is released – you have to be really careful about that sort of thing. So we want to have a pretty significant beta to make sure we’re not going to screw up this kind of stuff.”
As Cat summarized for us recently, reminiscent of Diablo 4, Path of Exile offers a more detailed experience than its counterpart Blizzard Entertainment.
Though clearly in the realm of dark fantasy, Path of Exile 2 is distinguished from Diablo 4distinctive art style by focusing on eldrich horror plucked straight from HP Lovecraft rather than the more biblical motifs of Diablo.
But if Grinding Gear Games manages to meaningfully iterate on the staples of the genre, the upcoming title could well earn a place among the best RPGs of recent years.