Path of Exile 2’s early access release date delayed to December

Path of Exile 2’s early access release has been delayed by three weeks, developer and publisher Grinding Gear Games has announced.

Previously due to launch on November 15, it will now arrive on December 6 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Game director Jonathan Rogers apologised for the delay in a video message published on X.

“Well it turns out it isn’t really the game itself that we’re behind on, it’s a bunch of server side infrastructure work that is taking us a lot longer than we expected,” Rogers explained.

“One of the key promises we made is that all your microtransactions will work across both PoE 1 and 2. In order to that, we have to integrate the account systems for not only PoE 1 and 2, but also for the console realms as well. This meant changing a lot of things.

“Not only do we have to create a bunch of new systems, we have to make sure that all the old data is backwards compatible with them as well. And when you start migrating databases that are this old and with this much data, you find all sorts of strange demons in there.”

“We have to get everything perfect so that nobody loses anything they paid for and nobody has their account broken,” Rogers  added. “At the same time, because we’re changing all this backend code, we have to do a lot of load testing to make sure the whole thing doesn’t fall over when we get the huge number of players we’re expecting at launch.”

Path of Exile 2 is a free-to-play action RPG featuring a new campaign with six acts, 100 distinct environments, 600 monsters and 100 bosses, according to Grinding Gear.

It will support cross-play, cross-progression, co-op for up to six players, and couch co-op.