Path of Exilewill celebrate nine years since its official release this October, and next year will mark the tenth anniversary of Grinding Gear Games' epic Action RPG. As customary with every new year,GGG is going to launch an endgame expansionthat will revolutionize the experience, but this time with a huge twist. With Sirus dead, Zana, an iconic character that has always been involved withPath of Exile’s Atlas, leaves and chooses exile to follow her own mysterious agenda, still heartbroken by the demise of the one she loved.
This leaves Commander Kirac in charge, who not only has to face theMaven from Echoes of the Atlas, but two more Eldritch Horrors and two more bosses. These creatures are the new pinnacle bosses forPath of Exile:Siege of the Atlas, and they are The Black Star, The Endless Hunger, The Searing Exarch, and The Eater of Worlds, with the former two being minor bosses that are encountered more often, and the latter being the true endgame encounters. And yet, theSiege of the Atlasexpansion launches alongside the Archnemesis League, which too brings in new exciting encounters and rich rewards for players to look forward to while exploring the revamped Atlas.
RELATED:Path Of Exile: 13 Pro Tips For The Scion Class
What Path of Exile: Siege of the Atlas Entails
Path of Exile’sSiege of the Atlasexpansion is a rather large one, as it features a complete revamp of the Atlas system and its regions, which no longer exist. In fact, the Atlas is currently divided into eight regions, each with its own Watchstone sockets and its Atlas passive trees, but Siege of the Atlas makes it so there is only one big Atlas and a single passive tree that grows richer the more players complete bonus objectives. This system allows players to allocate Atlas Passive Skills up to 117 different nodes out of the over 600 available, allowing for agreat degree of customizationin the sort of rewards and benefits they can get, which also apply to all the maps they run.
The impact of this feature is branching, as it will create more market niches for players to trade the goods obtained from their specialized map runs, as well as making these passives affect their whole Atlas rather than limited regions.Path of Exile’s Passive Tree is one of its signature characteristics, and seeing another tree, this time one that allows players to reshape what content they play and how rewarding it is, makes for a fantastic change. Players can now still take advantage of old nodes and specific League content, such as Delve orHeist, but also invest in passives that increase the number of maps they obtain, for example, or how often Sulphite is found across all maps.
The new bosses players will encounter are not dissimilar from how previous expansions worked, with The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds' influence appearing on the Atlas, but this time players will have the liberty of choosing which Eldritch Horrors they want to pursue after every map. All the Siege of the Atlas bosses, including The Black Star and The Endless Hunger, will drop new exclusiveUnique items that will have a huge impact on the customization of builds, especially when it comes to some jewels, such as Dissolution of Flesh, and the Forbidden Fire and Forbidden Flesh combinations. Not only that, though, asPath of Exile’s new bosses are also bringing Eldritch implicit modifiers and associated Eldritch Orbs to reroll them or empower them in various ways.
This addition changes the way build-enabling modifiers are now obtained, which were previously tied to Conqueror loot and item level, whereas now they can be rolled two at a time on every piece of gear - one Eldritch modifier from The Searing Exarch and one from The Eater of Worlds. The Eldritch Orbs can be used on items that also have the domination trait of either being dominated by The Searing Exarch or The Eater of Worlds, altering the results in different ways, up to the best possible outcome: a Tier 6 mod for one, a Tier 4 for the other. As such, the race for the best loot inPath of Exilewill be even more difficult in the hands of those who don’t know how to craft their items, but much more rewarding for those who do.
RELATED:Path of Exile: What is Corrupted Gear?
Path of Exile: The Archnemesis League
While Siege of the Atlas is a very layered expansion that will take a long time for players to master, the League released alongside it is more on the simpler side, but still one that packs plenty of challenging enemies and great rewards. The way Archnemesis works is more straightforward, as monsters will gain around 60 new mods that can be used to customize the first four Archnemesis encounters players find in any given zone - there will be more Archnemesis monsters in every area to avoid backtracking, but only four will work. From these mods, players can also create over 35 more by combining previous ones, each with its own degree of difficulty and associated loot.
Defeating Rare or Magic enemies inPath of Exile: Archnemesis will sometimes drop an itemized version of one of their mods, which players can store in a new League-specific tab to avoid inventory clutter, something that theExpedition Leaguewas criticized over. When players encounter one of the Archnemesis monsters they can free it by placing one of the mods obtained from other enemies or through recipes, thus empowering it and its rewards. These mods stack in a peculiar way, with the first mod appearing on all four encounters, the second one from the second to the fourth, and so on, making each Archnemesis even more deadly - but the prizes for slaying it even better, too.
While Archnemesis doesn’t come with League-specific Unique items of its own, players will be able to use its mechanics to obtain all sorts of Uniques from past Leagues as well as the regular item pool, depending on how they use and mix their mods. Overall, combining Siege of the Atlas with Archnemesis into a single release makes for afantastic time to start playingPath of Exileor come back to it, as there will be plenty of content to go through and spectacular new loot to obtain.
Path of Exile: Siege of the Atlas and Archnemesis Leagueare available starting February 11.
MORE:Path of Exile 8 Years Later: Dev Talks Clear Speed, Nature of ARPGs, Scourge Launch
