Uncover long-buried truths beneath a vast ancient fortress in Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients, where a new era transforms the endgame and reshapes its very foundations. Experience five new storylines, face 15 formidable new bosses, including four towering Pinnacles and explore new Ascendancy classes as either the Martial Artist or Spirit Walker while mastering many powerful new crafting systems.
- With over 50 hours of new endgame content, this expansion introduces a new challenge system, a host of powerful unique items, expanded crafting systems, and a completely reimagined Atlas Tree.
- Forge new paths with two new Ascendancy classes – the Marital Artist and Spirit Walker
- Improved campaign replayability, a new Build Planner, and numerous quality-of-life features to support every step of your journey.
Carve Power into Reality with Runes of Aldur League
The new league introduces Ezomyte Runesmithing through Farrow, a young blacksmith uncovering its ancient Kalguuran origins. After being rescued from an undead attack, Farrow introduces players to the ancient art of Runesmithing, which allows powerful items to be crafted by inscribing symbols onto Ezomyte Remnants.
Each Remnant contains a combination of pre-existing and player-selected symbols, determining the types of items that can be created. By combining different runes, players can craft a wide range of outcomes – from basic currency items to socketable runes with specific properties.
However, this power comes at a cost.
Activating a Remnant reanimates nearby undead, empowering them based on the runes used in the crafting process. For example, Fire-aligned runes grant enemies fire-based abilities. In contrast, Moon-aligned runes introduce celestial hazards such as falling lunar beams. This creates a dynamic risk-reward system in which more powerful crafting combinations lead to more dangerous encounters.
Upon defeating these enemies, players can claim their crafted item by breaking the Remnant. As players progress, they will encounter more complex Remnants with additional rune slots, enabling the creation of rarer items, while also increasing the difficulty of each encounter through additional waves of increasingly empowered enemies.
As players progress, Farrow discovers that Ezomyte Runesmithing originates from the ancient Kalguurans, who harnessed Verisium – a powerful metal capable of shaping reality through runic inscription. By collecting Verisium, players can unlock Runic Ward. This new defensive resource acts as a secondary life pool and also fuels powerful runic abilities.
Kalguuran magic introduces a new skill system powered by Runic Ward instead of mana, enabling flexible, class-agnostic abilities that can be combined with traditional skill gems for unique effects. Alongside this, players gain access to 100+ new crafting runes, including meta-crafting options like elemental conversion runes, tier-upgrading Masterwork Runes, or runes that can temporarily expand an item’s modifier pool.
Together, these systems significantly expand building and crafting possibilities, encouraging deep experimentation with powerful new combinations.
Uncover Ancient Secrets in The Fortress
Wraeclast lies in ruin after a devastating cataclysm, consumed by the creeping corruption of the Beast. Guided by the Vaal thaumaturge Doryani, players must seek out the makers of the Third Edict – the ancient Precursors – to uncover what path remains for a world on the brink.
As part of this journey, the Atlas has been transformed into a fully explorable endgame world, now covered with fixed objectives in every direction that offer clear destinations to discover and pursue, while towers remain essential for revealing what lies beyond.
In your first attempt to go to the towers, a colossal fortress arises from the ground, which has been awakened by an ancient protocol caused by the catastrophic effects of the Beast. To fend off the corruption, Plunge into the depths of the sprawling stronghold, activate its gates, secure the keys to its devastating precursor weapons, and disarm them.
This fortress marks the first of several new endgame storylines arriving in Return of the Ancients. packed with deadly new enemies, ancient machinery to restore, hidden secrets to uncover, and distinctive map mechanics and rewards, from relentless Azmeri spirit pursuits and essence-bound rare monsters to entire zones transformed into gauntlets of powerful strongboxes.
Unlike previous content, every boss in the endgame, including the returning Arbiter of Ash, is now reachable via a dedicated questline, removing the reliance on random key drops for first-time access.
Awaken new heights of power through the Atlas Tree and the guidance of the Atlas Masters
The Atlas passive tree has been significantly redesigned. Players can now unlock every node in the tree by completing maps throughout the Fortress. Many nodes now offer meaningful multi-choice decisions, allowing players to tailor their endgame experience without repeated respeccing.
Alongside the Atlas tree, a new system called Masters of the Atlas introduces Ascendancy-style progression for the endgame. Players can align with different masters – such as Jado of the Order of the Djinn or the monster hunter Hilda – each offering unique, asymmetric bonuses that can be swapped between maps at will, enabling build-defining bonuses.
