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As Path of Exile 2 faces issues such as "crashes, severe end-game balance problems," game director Jonathan Rogers shares the news that a new Path of Exile 1 expansion has been delayed until the team can sort out issues with the sequel.
"When we announced PoE 2, we promised that we would continue to create PoE 1 expansions," Rogers begins. "We do intend to keep that promise, but it's certainly been a lot harder to deliver on it than what we expected."
He explains that PoE 1 devs had to be moved off of that game to help with the launch of PoE 2, "We literally couldn't think about anything else until it was done. How could we think about making a PoE 1 expansion when we still have hundreds of thousands of people who are having bad experiences in PoE 2?"
Unfortunately, the issues with PoE 2 meant a lot of the studio's manpower was assigned to it rather than working on PoE 1. "How could I justify taking some of the most experienced developers we have off PoE 2 when it's on fire," Rogers asks?
He says after Christmas, "we had to really admit something to ourselves." Most work on PoE 1 is going to be paused because the team needs to "fix the most severe deficiencies that PoE 2 has before we can take our eyes off it."
Pre-production work will still go ahead for the PoE 1 expansion, but Rogers currently "can't promise a date right now," so there's no telling when it will be ready. He says the team will likely need to work on PoE 2 for at least a couple of weeks after its 0.2.0 update to ensure the game keeps running smoothly before they can go back to work on PoE 1.
Since the release of Path of Exile 2 in Early Access, our players have been asking about the future of Path of Exile 1 and the timeline for its next expansion. In this video Game Director Jonathan Rogers addresses the situation. pic.twitter.com/DKCq9yv6cRJanuary 30, 2025
"I'm really sorry for how this went down," Rogers says. "Honestly, I should have predicted the fact that taking the PoE 1 team off PoE 1 would lead to this outcome, and I probably should have resisted doing it. But at every stage I just kept thinking 'we still have time! We still have time!' And then we didn't have time anymore.
"We still have a lot to learn about how to run two games simultaneously. We were overconfident. We still need to work out how to structure our studio to make this possible. You guys do deserve better than this, and we will get 3.26 out as fast as we can."
The explanation and apology appear to have gone down well with fans. "This level of transparency and honesty is why GGG [Grinding Gear Games] has such insane amounts of good will built up in the industry. Sad about the delay but appreciate the communication," writes one player.
"I appreciate the transparency and the decision does make sense given the circumstances, even if it's sad to hear it," replies another.
One player writes the transparency is "greatly appreciated," but "I'm not upset at you (Jonathan) or anybody as much as the GGG as a whole. We were promised from the beginning that PoE 2 development and maintenance would NOT affect PoE 1, yet now we're having to deal with up to a nine-month delay for a new league [...] you have to also understand that you've already divided your player base in two, and now you're prioritizing one group over the other. It makes the PoE1 players feel incredibly unvalued and unappreciated (or, at least, that is how I feel)."
I think it's impressive GGG didn't go the Overwatch 2 route and simply overwrite PoE 1 or just leave it to die. It must be frustrating for the players of both games to have the team split right now, but hopefully the studio figures out how to support both games soon. Despite the teething issues, our review of PoE 2 calls it "A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure."
While you wait for the game to be fixed, check out the best online games you can sink your teeth into.
