Path of Exile fans, Grinding Gear Games is officially unveiling your next expansion,dubbed The Fall of Oriath.
It turns out that the place your Exile called home before being banished is not only the main setting of this act but is going through some rough times. Even lowbies like yours truly who vaguely recall their origin story can get behind this act. We're going home, dealing with civil unrest, and welcoming back some lost deities with sharp pointy objects or finger-wiggling destruction. And that's literally just the beginning.
New players might not realize that once you clear Acts 1-4 for the first time, you essentially replay them on a harder mode, like a New Game Plus from old-school RPGs that are featured prominently in a lot of modern ARPGs, like the Diablo series. After two replays, you'd move on to endgame. But GGG says it now realizes it loses a lot of players during the replay section of progression. Those who made it to endgame became core players, though, so the studio figured that if it cut back on the repetitive gameplay with some new acts, it'd be easier to get people to endgame and retain them. Considering that the game saw a 44% increase in player hours in 2016 when compared to 2015 and had over a million active players in December, I'm guessing they're making the right call for their metrics.
So Act 5 will take place in Oriath, across towns, temples, and mountaintops. You'll be fighting in all new zones, and of course, pick up some new abilities along the way. But Acts 6 through 10 take place in the old world as you revisit past areas to see how they've changed thanks to your meddling. Towns will be built up, mobs will evolve, paths you unlocked will remain unlocked, etc. A cynic might suspect the base game is simply being retextured, but Grinding Gears told me it's focusing on making Acts 6-10 story-driven content based on changes brought about in previous acts, and in doing so, the studio can create multiple acts much faster than before.
On March 3rd, players will gain access to "The Legacy Challenge League." This league lets you revisit past leagues for adventures/items to celebrate the upcoming expansion, which is free. All of it. Except, you know, stuff in the store. This will be available before the beta for the expansion and followed by the actual expansion later this year.
The Xbox One version of the game is chiefly aimed at bringing hardcore PC action to console gamers. While everything coming in this expansion will be ready in time for the Xbox One launch, there's sadly no cross-play since the console version isn't identical (at one point, the number of potions available at a time for Xbox players was fewer than for PC gamers, for example, though that's since been fixed). Grinding Gears told me it's already turned many casual players into hardcore by building an accessible system that teaches and motivates players to be smarter. Combined with help from Microsoft's advertising team and grassroots demos with media, the New Zealand-based team is hoping to reach a broader audience.
We did ask about mouse-and-keyboard play on consoles: GGG explained it doesn't support that sort of play and would prefer people to play with the controller, as they've removed all the mouse code from the Xbox version of the game. The studio also says it's cleaned up the UI and store for Xbox and will be rolling out the change for PC as well.