One of the most alluring traits of Path of Exile is that it is far from the game it was almost eight years ago, and each new League changes the way the base game is played while adding layers of difficulty via exclusive mechanics. This has been the trend for a long time now, but things are changing more now that the Expedition League has been announced and is coming in less than a week from now. Path of Exile: Expedition packs in a lot, and even the League's mechanic feels different in the way it's delivered, because it doesn't feature classic encounters. It is more of a "choose your adventure" system.
In Path of Exile: Expedition, players will join four Kalguur NPCs who want to excavate the expedition sites where their ancestors' bones now lay, and the game will offer the chance to select which areas of the site players want to excavate. There will be relics and undead Kalguur to unearth, and then the treasures will be tradeable in different ways with each NPC, which makes their personalities tied to the way they relate to players and provide items in return for currency. Prior NPCs in Path of Exile usually behave in a standard way, where each of them has a shop from which players can buy items by paying a pre-determined price.
RELATED: Eldest Souls Devs Compare Character Builds to Path of Exile
Path of Exile: Expedition promises to challenge the current status quo of the game by changing everything. There will be 19 new gems coming with the Expedition League, and what is changing is that there won't be a single theme for these skills to be tied to; instead, each of them is tied to one of the game's 19 Ascendancy classes both in theme and gameplay. This opens up a lot of options for players who love Path of Exile builds, as these skills can be also used by different classes with a few interesting combinations to drastically change and improve the way they feel.
As per producer Chris Wilson during the announcement, Path of Exile: Expedition will come with plenty of balance changes to keep power creep in check. This is not the only objective, as nerfing everything or increasing the game's artificial difficulty by adding harder monsters is not effective. Instead, Grinding Gear Games (GGG) will try to make builds appealing for how fun to play they can be and reward players by offering high performance. This also includes a rebalance of Support Gems to reduce the appeal of high damage versus other interactions.
RELATED: Diablo 4: What the Druid and Sorceress Mean for The Game's Last Class
Another important point is that Path of Exile: Expedition will be the first of a few Leagues in which GGG will tamper with the game's main campaign in order to make it harder and more punishing, which is more in-line with what the game was like back when it came out, and with other ARPGs as well. GGG noticed that there are no monsters that move quicker than players in Act 1, and that sense of dread when approaching a few zones, like the Ship Graveyard Cave. This will change more over time, and the campaign will be tougher until reaching the endgame is not as easy as it is now.
Lastly, with Path of Exile: Expedition, there will be changes to how Flasks work. These changes are specifically aimed at the "Flask piano" playstyle that has been the main meta for Path of Exile over the past few years. Flask will also become less impactful by gaining far fewer charges and changing their mechanics as well, which means that the endgame in Path of Exile: Expedition is going to be very different from that of Ultimatum. Overall, the new League is very promising, and players have a little extra something to look forward to in the form of Path of Exile Royale until Expedition is released.
Path of Exile: Expedition launches on July 23 for PC, and on July 28 for PS4 and Xbox One.