Auckland, New Zealand –Thursday, December 1, 2022 — Grinding Gear Games announced today via livestream, that Path of Exile’s latest free expansion, Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum, will launch on Friday, December 9 on PC, and Wednesday, December 14 for PlayStation and Xbox.
During the stream, Grinding Gear Games Co-founder Chris Wilson revealed that Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum will feature a brand new Challenge League and improvements to Path of Exile‘s endgame, alongside two new Skill Gems, seven new Vaal Skill Gems, over 15 new Unique Items, significant balance changes to jewels, hexes, monster modifiers, unique weapons and more. This expansion also introduces Ruthless, an optional new way to play Path of Exile with extreme item scarcity.
More information on The Forbidden Sanctum content can be found below:
- New Three-month Challenge League: The Forbidden Sanctum is a roguelike that takes place within Path of Exile. Players will explore an ancient sanctum which is rumored to be hidden beneath the Fellshrine Ruins. Long abandoned, a malevolent presence has taken hold. In each area of Wraeclast they play through, players will have the opportunity to explore one room of the Sanctum as they search for its treasures.
- New Skills and Vaal Gems – Two new skill gems that benefit melee characters have been introduced. These are Volcanic Fissure, a fiery slam skill, and Frozen Legion, a spell that summons a ring of icy melee statues. Many new Vaal Gems have been introduced. Vaal Gems are alternate versions of existing skill gems that come with a periodic and massive power boost.
- Ruthless Mode – An optional new game mode which can be selected during character creation. Ruthless is all about extreme item scarcity, which creates a challenging and brutal way to play Path of Exile.
- New Unique Items – This expansion introduces over fifteen new unique items that can be found within the Sanctum or throughout Wraeclast. These items create new opportunities for specialized character creation.
- Monster Modifiers – The Archnemesis monster modifier system has been replaced with a refined set of modifiers that each only do one thing and say exactly what they do. Their rewards have been updated as a result and are no longer associated with specific modifiers. In general, magic and rare monster combat is now less complex but can still result in a combination of modifiers that get your heart racing.
- Endgame Improvements – Improvements have been made to the Atlas Passive Tree that allow players to invest even further into content they enjoy. Two new Atlas Memories can now also be found, telling the story of Domination and Bestiary.
- Buffed Endgame Unique Weapons – Ten endgame unique weapons have received massive buffs to bring them in line with some of Path of Exile’s most iconic items. Naturally, they’re now extremely rare.
- Balance Changes – Many balance changes have been made to game areas such as Jewels, Hexes, and Eldritch Altars.
To learn more about the updates coming in Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum, check out the full VOD of the Twitch livestream which aired today.
To learn more about Path of Exile, go to https://www.pathofexile.com or check out
Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum Official Trailer: https://youtu.be/BIdt1QdogbA
Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum Content Reveal: https://youtu.be/sxpOaZjU5xg
Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum Announcement Page
Ruthless Mode – https://www.pathofexile.com/ruthless
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pathofexile
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pathofexile
About Path of Exile
Path of Exile continues to be one of the largest online Action RPGs with continual, massive audience growth. Launches on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well as in China and South Korea have almost tripled the Path of Exile player community since August 2017.
Path of Exile was released in October 2013 to critical acclaim including winning GameSpot’s PC Game of the Year award. Since its launch, Path of Exile has become a global community of over 20 million players including localized versions in English, German, French, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Russian, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese and Korean. In 2019, Path of Exile made Steam’s Top Ten “Most Played” game list for the second year in a row. In November 2019, the first Path of Exile fan convention, ExileCon, took place in Auckland, New Zealand. Path of Exile capped off its most successful year by winning a prestigious BAFTA award for Best Evolving Game.
More information about specific features of Path of Exile can be found at www.pathofexile.com
About Grinding Gear Games
Grinding Gear Games was founded in 2006 and is based in West Auckland, New Zealand. Its team members come from various countries and have a diversity of backgrounds ranging from artificial intelligence and software security to industrial design and professional tournament gaming. After the release of its flagship title, Path of Exile, GGG has been committed to ongoing expansion and new content releases for the critically-acclaimed game. In 2018, Tencent acquired a majority interest in Grinding Gear Games.
