The good news on the horizon is that developer Grinding Gear Games will not release Path of Exile 2 in a half-baked state. The bad news being that the developer has no choice but to push the sequel ahead by a couple of years.
Speaking in the latest Baeclast podcast episode (via PC Games) earlier today, producer and lead designer Chris Wilson reiterted that Grinding Gear Games continues to face challenges resulting from COVID-19. While development has peaked since the pandemic arrived, Path of Exile 2 will not release before 2024. Its promised open beta will similarly not go live until 2023 at the latest.
Path of Exile 2 was officially announced nearly two years ago and its open beta was supposed to have already seen the light. When the pandemic hit worldwide, Grinding Gear Games had to slow down development since hiring was nearly impossible due to lockdowns and switching to a remote model was taking time.
Path of Exile 2 will feature seven acts in total. Wilson confirmed that the first act is nearly complete and with the second act nearing completion as well. Unfortunately, that still leaves behind five more acts and why the developer does not expect the sequel to be finished anytime soon.
Thankfully, Path of Exile 2 is now in “full production mode” and as such, fans can keep their fingers crossed that no further unforeseen delays will happen.
Path of Exile 2 was previously given a tentative release window of 2022 which has now been extended by a couple of years. The game received some new footage last year as part of a livestream and it could not look any better.
The sequel features impressive visual improvements over its original, two new spear and crossbow weapon classes, a mobile base of operations, new vendors, new special effects and animations, and a lot of new avenues to explore in terms of gameplay.
