Update 3.28 for Path of Exile introduces the Reliquarian, the first new specialization in two years, and completely revamps the entire endgame with the Mirage League and a radical Atlas redesign.
Grinding Gear Games announced the Path of Exile: Mirage expansion in its latest livestream, which will be released on March 6.
While the action role-playing game traditionally comes out with new content every three to four months, this time there is something special: after around two years, the Scion class is getting a completely new subclass with the Reliquarian.
This breaks with the conventional rules of character progression and offers a level of freedom in character creation that has never been seen before.
The power of uniques – without owning them
Normally, character development in Path of Exile works like this: You first have to laboriously find a rare, legendary item (a “unique”) or trade for it from other players, equip it, and then you receive a powerful special effect. The downside: this equipment slot is then occupied. The new Reliquarian specialization changes this fundamentally and makes experimentation extremely easy.
As a Reliquarian, you don’t have to own the items: Once you unlock the specialization in the game by completing the labyrinth, you simply select the powers of these legendary items from a predefined list as a permanent passive ability. You learn the magic of the item directly from your talent tree, so to speak. This offers two huge advantages:
- You can use powerful effects that other players would have to farm for many hours to obtain.
- Since you use the effect without physically carrying the item on your body, it doesn’t take up space in your inventory. You can equip a completely different item there, combining the advantages of two items that are actually competing with each other.
You select powers from three categories (armor, weapons, jewelry) one after the other. The list of available items is not fixed: Grinding Gear Games plans to rotate the available powers between leagues to enable new strategies again and again.
What’s in the new league
In addition to the new specialization, Patch 3.28 introduces the Mirage League: You fight against the Afarud, a sect of desert necromancers who enslave magical beings. To free them, you enter the Astral Realm – a so-called “Mirage.”
This Mirage is an “imperfect copy” of your current game area: You effectively play part of your map a second time, including all previously activated rewards and monster buffs. Before entering the portal, you may also choose one of three wishes. One wish can make you temporarily invincible, while another ensures that simple items drop directly as valuable currency.
Radical overhaul in the endgame
Alongside the new class and league, the developer is fundamentally revamping the late game (endgame):
- Map items are no longer tied to a specific level design. When you find a level 10 map, you can freely decide which of the unlocked areas you want to visit with it on your world atlas.
- The previous “Awakened Support Gems” will be removed and replaced by over 40 new “Exceptional Supports.” These new gems are designed to change and specialize the way your attacks work much more than before.
- To avoid unnecessary clicking, consumable items such as Cartographer’s Chisels will be completely removed from the game. The rewards that are lost as a result will be distributed elsewhere in the game.
Together with a range of new skill gems and many other improvements to the gaming experience, version 3.28 marks yet another comprehensive update, as we have come to expect from Grinding Gear Games.
Will you be taking a look next week, or are you more drawn to the sequel, Path of Exile 2? Or maybe you’d rather try out the new Warlock in Diablo 2 Resurrected? Let us know in the comments!
