Grinding Gear Games has announced that its long-running ARPG Path of Exile will be updated for PC with the Crucible expansion on April 7th. The PlayStation and Xbox versions of Crucible will launch on April 12th.
To celebrate the big news, GGG sent out a new trailer detailing all the changes coming in the expansion.
As with all PoE expansions, players can look forward to a host of changes, new challenges, new items to unlock, and much more.
Crucible features
- Crucible Challenge League – This “pushes the boundaries” of the game’s item system by letting you augment your weapons with their own skill trees. These trees provide bonuses that improve or augment your character’s playstyle. Skills in the trees consume experience from Crucible encounters to unlock but can have quite powerful effects. In Crucible encounters, players choose a weapon to improve by channeling it at an ancient forge. Pushing your limits is the fastest way to level up your weapon. But doing so increases the risk of failing the challenge. In its exclusive endgame area, The Forge of the Titans, these trees can be combined together to create weapons of unprecedented power.
- Atlas Gateways – A new addition to Path of Exile’s Endgame, Atlas Gateways are new nodes that allow instant traversal between two locations in the Atlas Passive Tree, easing the amount of travel points which lets players focus on building the tree that lets them play the content they want.
- Endgame Content Revamp – Breach/Abyss – Two older league mechanics, Breach and Abyss, have been revamped. Both mechanics have had a reduction in clutter and improved gameplay, resulting in a more streamlined experience with highly-focussed rewards.
- Passive Tree and Masteries Rework – Around half of the Masteries have been reworked, with the new Masteries having more interesting effects that will shake up many builds and provide additional options for new ones.
- New Vaal Skills – Nine new Vaal Skills have been added to the game. These are versions of existing skills that improve and augment the original skill, giving players a periodic boost when they need it, whether it’s to focus on defeating a boss or mitigating burst damage in an emergency.
- Ascendancy Reworks – The Saboteur and Pathfinder ascendancy classes have been reworked by giving them new and exciting tools that are more impactful and push their themes even further.
- Ruthless Improvements – Several improvements to the Ruthless game mode have been made, including the return of Eternal Orbs and the introduction of a Ruthless-specific set of challenges to complete.
To see how developers came up with the new features, the PoE team took to the airwaves in a special live stream. Viewers were treated to a peek at the new systems and the philosophies behind them. You can check it out here.
Learn more about Path of Exile – Crucible on the official site.
