Grinding Gear Games announced the new expansion Ultimatum for the action role-playing game Path of Exile (PoE). You can expect some new challenges where you must proceed very carefully.
What’s in Ultimatum? Even though Path of Exile 2 is being actively developed and new gameplay is being showcased, the development studio Grinding Gear Games continues to provide the current game with new content. The latest expansion, or league, revolves around risk.
Do you want to grab particularly powerful loot and risk losing everything you’ve earned, or are you satisfied with less?
In the game, the Trialmaster Chaos appears to challenge you to take risks. These are associated with valuable loot or harsh loss. The highlights are two Trials:
- Risk it all: The Trialmaster presents you with a challenge where you must defeat powerful enemies. If you succeed, a reward awaits. Or you can continue and attempt to fight these monsters at a higher difficulty level. Then you will receive even more valuable loot. If you choose to stop, the earned items belong to you. However, if you keep going and fight against increasingly tougher foes, you risk losing everything. If you are defeated, everything you earned in the challenge will be lost.
- Double or Nothing: This second Trial is based on a similar principle to Risk it all. You have to bring an item into the realm of the Trialmaster and master a challenge there. If you succeed, you will receive an item worth double. However, if you lose, your item is gone.
The trailer gives you a glimpse into the new league of Path of Exile:
There are even more new features in Ultimatum
What else is new? There are new items and skills in Path of Exile 3.14 that you can use to face the enemies. The following items have been introduced as new Uniques:
- Glimpse of Chas Vaal Mask – the item grants you bonuses to life, mana, and energy shield, but reduces elemental resistances and has no resistance to chaos.
- Mahuxotl’s Machination – you receive six Keystone Passive Skills at once. You can freely combine these, which the developers of PoE claim should have special effects.
Players find the overhaul of the reward system particularly exciting. Loot from previous leagues will be altered, and the general loot will also be revised. According to the developers, it couldn’t convince players as much as Managing Director Chris Wilson explains:
The “core drop pool” of items received from killing regular monsters wasn’t really convincing enough.
The new loot includes the extremely rare Reliquary Key, which you can use to enter a treasure chamber. There you will find versions of the new league items. Also, high-level monsters can drop very powerful items without you having to participate in special content like events.
Additionally, you can see the effects of enchantments before selecting them, and you now get a larger selection of items from the NPC Cadiro through the item Pandau’s Coin. The rewards from Incubators have been improved, new Beastcrafts are included, and the rewards from the boss Atziri have been optimized.
What do players think of the new league? What Grinding Gear Games has shown so far of PoE: Ultimatum is being received excellently. Here you can read some opinions from the community:
- FearlessSpinner jokingly comments on the new trailer (via Youtube): “I hate how the game manipulates me. Me before the trailer: I will probably pass on the next league. Me after the trailer: I can’t wait! Let’s go!”
- Geosgaeno is particularly excited about the revamped reward system (via reddit): “This is exactly what I love! Reworks!”
- Malicharo writes (via reddit): “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hyped about a league.”
- MrNiab explains (via reddit): “I am really very impressed with this update so far.”
When does Ultimatum start? The new league of PoE will start on April 16 on PC and on April 21 on PS4/PS5 and Xbox One as well as Xbox Series X/S. Then we will see if the announced innovations and changes are really as good as they sound.
What do you think of Path of Exile: Ultimatum? Are you looking forward to the new league?
Path of Exile is also one of the 5 free co-op games we recommend in 2021. You can find out which ones are also interesting in the article.
