We're heading toward Path of Exile 2 going 1.0, just two years after the action-RPG first launched in early access. Once this happens the game will be free-to-play, but given its success thus far, a senior developer at Baldur's Gate 3 company Larian Studios believes Grinding Gear Games is already well and truly in the green.
He mentions as much on Twitter, in discussions over how many players Path of Exile 2 will attract once there's no price to try it out. "Path of Exile 2 is so fucking genius because they're selling so many copies it won't even matter if nobody buys anything when it goes free," Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, writes.
"It's so good in Early Access. It is so obviously much better than Diablo 4 1.0 in its EA state," he adds. "Those guys are the absolute best at what they do."
@ALegendaryDrops PoE2 is so fucking genius because they're selling so many copies it won't even matter if nobody buys anything when it goes free. It's so good in Early Access. It is so obviously much better than Diablo 1.0 in its EA state. Those guys are the absolute best at what the do.November 13, 2026
Those are big words when it comes to expansive action RPGs, but given the playerbase, I suspect plenty would agree. Path of Exile 2's peak concurrent player count is 578,562, and that's when charging for the game in early access.
The sky seems like the limit once the full 1.0 release is here. That's a healthy community, and those are positive numbers when you're a team hoping to grow the game over a number of years before putting it out into the world.
We don't have comparable stats for any of the Diablos because they're primarily on BattleNet, and there's no steamCharts equivalent for that. But Grinding Gear Games is clearly doing something right. Douse mentions he plays the second Path of Exile "every other evening," because World of Warcraft absorbs the rest of his time.
Another way the role-playing game is proving to be a thorn in Blizzard's side. We'll see just how much that changes come 1.0 on December 11.
