Path of Exile 2 Leaves Early Access on December 11 With Two New Classes and a Complete Six-Act Campaign
Path of Exile 2 is finally getting its full release. Grinding Gear Games confirmed during the live keynote at ExileCon 2026 that the action RPG will leave early access and go free-to-play on December 11, closing out two years of testing with a finished campaign, two brand new classes, and a reworked endgame built around the new Conquerors of Wraeclast challenge league.
Shadow and Duelist Round Out the Class Roster
The 1.0 release adds the Shadow and the Duelist, giving every weapon archetype in the game a dedicated class. The Shadow specializes in daggers, leaning into stealth mechanics, shadow clones that fight alongside the player, and familiar skills like blade vortex and fire trap reworked around the new dagger gems. The Duelist takes up swords instead, bringing back skills like cyclone and hemorrhage alongside stances such as blood and sand or ready stance, with the freedom to dual wield, two hand, or fight sword and board.
Combat against packs of monsters remains at the core of Path of Exile 2’s loot driven endgame.
Six Acts, One Finished Campaign
After running with only its first four acts through most of early access, Path of Exile 2’s campaign is now complete. Acts five and six close out the story of chasing the Beast across Wraeclast, taking players back through Oriath and beyond, and add new bespoke rare monsters with their own abilities, appearances, and affixes along the way.
Conquerors of Wraeclast: Armies, Castles, and a Reworked Atlas
The 1.0 league, Conquerors of Wraeclast, is introduced during the campaign itself. Players recruit armies at more than 70 points of interest scattered across the story, then use them to battle enemy forces and build up a personal castle that can be upgraded with gold, similar to Path of Exile 1’s Kingsmarch system. Commanders can later be sent out to run maps automatically, converting gold into atlas progress and loot. Once the campaign ends, players pick one of three factions, Karui, Ezomyte, or Marraketh, and fight for control of castles across the atlas, which grants fast travel, extra item rarity, and access to nearby hunting grounds full of rare monsters.
The endgame itself has also been trimmed down. The atlas skill tree drops from more than 300 nodes to roughly 70, several support gems such as the various elemental penetration options have been consolidated into one, and passive tree jewels now slot into dedicated skill clusters instead of sitting on the outer travel nodes, a change meant to stop endgame builds from converging on the same layout.
- Full release date: December 11, 2026 (PST), leaving early access and going free-to-play
- Two new classes: the dagger focused Shadow and the sword focused Duelist
- Campaign finished with new Acts 5 and 6
- New Conquerors of Wraeclast challenge league built around army recruitment and castle battles
- Atlas skill tree trimmed from over 300 nodes to about 70
- Dozens of reworked support gems plus over 100 updated or brand new uniques and base types
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Picture Source: Grinding Gear Games
