Grinding Gear Games has announced Siege of the Atlas, a brand-new, free-to-play Path of Exile expansion coming early next month.
Launching on February 4 for PC and February 9 for PS4 and Xbox One, Siege of the Atlas will feature new Atlas systems, pinnacle bosses, one “massive” Atlas passive skill tree, Eldritch endgame crafting, unique items, the Archnemesis Challenge league, and more. After defeating Kitava, players will meet Commander Kirac in the Karui Shores and join his militia to safeguard the Atlas of Worlds. During this, the Envoy will relay that two Eldritch Horrors, The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds, are approaching and will consume everything.
The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds are “the most powerful being that Wraeclast has ever seen” and the path to defeating them involves exploring maps and slaying subordinates, The Black Star and The Infinite Hunger, yielding valuable rewards.
For this endgame expansion, Atlas mechanics have been reworked “with a goal of creating deeper systems that are easier to understand.” Regions have also been removed so the player’s Atlas specialization affects every map they run, and while players would previously collect 16 Watchstones, players will now need to earn four Voidstones which let them raise the tier of all maps until they are uniformly tier 16. Sextants can apply to Voidstones and be itemized and traded.
The release of Siege of the Atlas will also see the removal of Atlas Passive Trees and introduce one big Atlas-wide Passive Tree with over 600 skills to specialize in. Every map, along with various quests, will earn players a skill point that can be used to level their tree.
The Archnemesis league is another new addition to Path of Exile and will task players with building their own Rare boss fights by applying new monster modifiers to petrified monsters. Modifiers add dangerous behaviors to targets, but also imbue them with valuable rewards, and there are over 60 new boss modifiers to discover.
Various other updates include four new Atlas bosses who each have their own drop pools of new unique items, with more than a dozen in total, game balance improvements, new stash tabs allowing the player to store up to 500 Gems or Flasks and filter between types, as well as a competitive event where players will compete in the Archnemesis Hardcore Solo Self-found League to be the first to defeat a trio of bosses: The Maven, The Searing Exarch, and the Eater of Worlds.
Grinding Gear Games will also release two new sets of Supporter Packs from the Wyrm and Emberkeep series to celebrate the release of Siege of the Atlas and the Archnemesis League and will feature exclusive microtransactions.
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