Path of Exile 2 developer Grinding Gear Games had previously and optimistically said a 1.0 full release might happen this year. GGG gave it a 65 percent chance of happening when I spoke with the studio in March. But those ambitions have now been ruled out.
Speaking after a presentation for the incoming Third Edict update, also known as 0.3.0, and answering a question asked by me, game director Jonathan Rogers said: “Yes I believe that we probably aren’t going to hit 1.0 this year.
“What it currently comes down to is there are two things we need to make sure of before we can have a release. The first one is that we have to have a campaign finished – that’s obviously important – and the second one is that we have to be in a balance-state where people are actually happy and things are going well. Until we’ve had a release where we’re sure both of those things are true, then we can’t release.
“It could be March [2026],” he added. “We release things every four months so December would be the next one and then March after that, so I would certainly hope that March could happen, but I’m not going to promise anything. Because ultimately it just comes down to: have we met those two criteria? At this point it would be quite hard to get Act 5 in December but we’ll see about that, and as for getting good balance: we have a little way to go with that. But I’m hoping things will be a lot better for this release.”
The release he’s referring to is the Third Edict, the enormous incoming update for the Early Access version of Path of Exile 2, due 29th August. It will bring, among other things, the fourth act of the game, temporary interlude acts, the game’s first League, a new trading system, a crafting overhaul, a sprinting mechanic, an overhaul for Support Gems and a considerable rework of the existing classes and their skills. Note that there’s no new character class this time around but balance changes took precedence.