Grinding Gear Games is reported to end early access on December 11, 2026. The full campaign and endgame would become free on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
The current early access build began on December 6, 2024, and its reported exit date now sits on December 11, 2026. Grinding Gear Games is expected to make Path of Exile 2 free-to-play that day, with the Duelist class and the final two campaign acts included.
Launch Details
GameNewsPlus reports a Friday, December 11, 2026 release at Pacific Time. The game is expected to launch across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, although Grinding Gear Games has not announced one worldwide unlock time or pre-load dates. Every platform currently supporting early access is expected to receive the full version at the same time. A Nintendo Switch 2 edition is not part of the company's current plans.
The date and launch details come from secondary reporting rather than a published official Grinding Gear Games launch FAQ. The developer's official site has not independently confirmed the timing.
The price changes more sharply than the version number. Early access required a $30 Supporter Pack, while the complete campaign and endgame are expected to open without an entry fee at launch. GameNewsPlus says Supporter Packs apply to Early Access and will not be required for the full version. That remains a secondary-source claim, not an independent primary announcement.
Microtransactions are shared account-wide between Path of Exile 1 and Path of Exile 2 wherever applicable. Existing stash tabs and cosmetics remain attached to players' accounts.
Players who sign up at pathofexile2.com/register will receive microtransaction codes by email after launch. The registration bonus does not change the larger access policy: the game's full content is expected to move outside the early access buy-in.
Grinding Gear Games says players will not need to pay for the campaign or endgame, although optional microtransactions remain part of the account structure. That differs from the limited free weekend described in earlier coverage of ARC Raiders.
The official Path of Exile account has separately confirmed that ExileCon will take place on November 7 and 8, 2026. New announcements and developer presentations are planned there. The statement confirms the event dates, but it does not confirm the December 11 launch.
Campaign And Combat
Path of Exile 2 remains an isometric loot-driven action RPG and a direct sequel to the 2013 original. The opening puts the player at the gallows, where a broken rope creates an escape into a nearby river.
Combat puts more weight on demanding campaign bosses, readable attack patterns and deliberate positioning. Encounters are designed to resist the old habit of reducing every fight to one repeated attack.
The series' build complexity remains intact. Characters combine a base class with an Ascendancy subclass and use the shared passive skill tree, while skill gems and support gems determine how abilities behave. The design pushes players toward rotating several skills instead of relying on one main attack.
After the campaign comes the Atlas of Worlds endgame. Players run Waystones across its expanding map and invest in an Atlas passive tree to shape rewards before taking on Pinnacle encounters. Seasonal leagues remain central, with fresh mechanics and economies alongside Standard, Hardcore and Solo Self-Found variants.
What 1.0 Adds
The Duelist is the most visible new class in the launch package and the first Path of Exile 2 class built around swords. Grinding Gear Games describes it as a fast, aggressive and adaptable melee fighter. Swords arrive as a new weapon type, while the class's Ascendancy options remain unnamed.
Acts 5 and 6 will complete the six-act story at 1.0. Act 4 already arrived during early access, so the launch campaign adds the remaining chapters instead of introducing a separate post-release expansion.
The longer-term plan calls for 12 base classes with three Ascendancies each. The Duelist joins the eight classes already playable in early access, bringing nine confirmed base classes for launch. Grinding Gear Games has not said whether the remaining three will arrive with 1.0 or later. The Duelist's own three Ascendancies also remain unnamed.
The route from the first early access build to launch has been substantial. Patch 0.1.0 opened with six classes, Acts 1 through 3 and the Atlas endgame on December 6, 2024.
Dawn of the Hunt added the Huntress, spears, bucklers, five new Ascendancies and more than 25 new skills on April 4, 2025. The Third Edict brought Act 4 on August 29, 2025. The Last of the Druids introduced the shapeshifting Druid on December 12, 2025.
Return of the Ancients overhauled the endgame, added nearly 200 skill gems and launched the Runes of Aldur league on May 29, 2026. Forbidden Rites arrived as an event league on September 4, 2026.
Secondary reporting describes 1.0 as the point when the Forbidden Rites and Runes of Aldur leagues end and a new economy begins. That transition has not been independently documented in an official Grinding Gear Games FAQ among the available sources. TimeSaver.gg carries the same broader account of a clean 1.0 economy.
Characters And Requirements
Early access characters will not be erased. At 1.0, they move into a permanent Early Access league with their levels, gear and stash intact. The new 1.0 Standard league starts from zero, so early access characters, currency, gear, maps and other economic progress will not transfer. Challenge rewards earned during early access remain on players' accounts.
The published PC requirements remain the only official specifications supplied in the source material. Minimum hardware requires Windows 10, an Intel Core i7-7700 or AMD Ryzen 5 2500X, 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 960 with 3GB. An Intel Arc A380 or Radeon RX 470 also meets the listed graphics requirement.
Recommended hardware requires Windows 10, an Intel Core i5-10500 or AMD Ryzen 5 3700X, 16 GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 2060. An Intel Arc A770 or Radeon RX 5600 XT is also listed. Both tiers require DirectX 12 and 100 GB of storage, with an SSD recommended.
GameNewsPlus, citing the Steam page, also reports a 100 GB installation requirement. That figure describes required free space rather than a confirmed final download size. The completed 1.0 download size and any pre-load schedule have not been officially announced.
Path of Exile 2 supports NVIDIA DLSS CNN model and NIS, AMD FSR 2 and Intel XeSS 1.3. Grinding Gear Games has not officially supported Frame Generation, although workarounds exist through mods such as Optiscaler. On consoles, the game uses graphics controls instead of standard Quality and Performance presets. The PS5 Pro version supports PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, or PSSR.
The launch separates two economies without deleting early access history. Players keep account rewards and their existing characters, while the 1.0 league begins with a clean market. Long-term purchases survive, but accumulated currency and equipment from the prior period do not enter the new economy.
An upscaler reconstructs an image from a lower internal resolution. Frame Generation creates additional displayed frames between rendered ones. Neither claim equals native rendering or independently measured frame-rate stability. For 1.0, confirmed evidence covers supported upscaling technologies, official specifications and platform features, not a verified performance result.
The wider Path of Exile schedule remains less certain than the reported 1.0 date. Available secondary coverage says the next major Path of Exile 1 expansion is planned for 2026 rather than 2027 because of the sequel's launch, but no official confirmation appears in the available sources. ExileCon on November 7 and 8, 2026 remains the clearest confirmed upcoming developer event.
