Path of Exile 2 Citadels spawn so rarely that they have spawned community conspiracy theories

Path of Exile 2’s new Citadel system for its endgame is infuriating players in a way we haven’t seen before. This is a part of the endgame where players look for special map nodes called Citadels on the Atlas of Worlds. Through these, you’ll find specific Crisis Fragments, all so you can finally fight the Pinnacle boss of the game, Arbiter of Ash. However, it’s not incredibly clear how to find these.

Players and content creators alike have started coming up with their own theories on how to find them, insisting that it’s not RNG that allows Citadels to Spawn in Path of Exile 2’s Atlas of Worlds.

Note: Part of this article is based on the author's opinion.

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Path of Exile 2’s Citadels spawn incredibly rarely, giving rise to conspiracy theories

The Atlas of Worlds is a procedurally generated map in Path of Exile 2 with a host of interesting nodes, including Citadels. I didn’t even realize there were so many theories and suggestions about how these could be found until I saw DarthMicrotransaction TV’s video about the “Conspiration Situation.”

Here's one of the "corpse compasses" in a Lost Tower (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

In it, he talked about several alleged ways to find Citadels in Path of Exile 2, and how after he posted the video, he received piles more of them to look at. Perhaps the most famous of these has to be the Corpse Compass theory. In this, you’ll see corpses at the end of a Lost Tower in PoE 2.

Allegedly, these corpses form a sort of compass that can help lead you to a Citadel node, which is ridiculous. These maps are procedurally generated - the odds of this being true are incredibly unlikely. One example he gave was that eventually, he ran into a situation where he had two towers next to each other that pointed in completely opposite directions.

Of course, there are content creators who claim they use this and come across tons of Citadel nodes in Path of Exile 2, and if you just do the same, you’ll have the same success. This doesn’t really appear to be the case.

There's really no telling when or where you'll find a Citadel (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

There’s also the Huts theory, which is and isn't one that makes sense. When you find a Citadel, you’re going to see a ton of little houses and huts on the map. People have said you need to “follow the huts,” but that’s not really true. When you find the huts, you’ve found the Citadel. So “following the huts” doesn’t really lead you to a Citadel, because when you’ve seen the huts, you’re already there.

While it’s almost certainly RNG, there is at least something you can do to try and find specific Citadels, and that’s explore biomes where they should spawn. For example, Copper Citadels are supposed to spawn in desert biomes. If that’s what you’re looking for then focus on desert portions of your Atlas of Worlds. Does that mean you’re sure to find one? Absolutely not.

There doesn’t appear to be a real, definitive way to actually find these Citadels in Path of Exile 2 — at least, not that we’ve seen. It all seems to be RNG, and it’s likely that Grinding Gear Games is just laughing at everyone diving as deep as possible into the Atlas of Worlds, so that they can find these Citadels in PoE 2's endgame.

Citadels exist, but they're fearfully rare unless you're lucky (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Now, to be fair, there is some breadcrumb trailing baked into the game. One example is the increasing number of certain assets when you’re near a boss arena. That’s something we all know about. But the Citadel theories expect a scale of deterministic Atlas layout formations that’s so far unproven.

As far as we’re aware, Atlas generation is a League-wide randomized seed for each account, similar to Minecraft or Terraria. Every player will have a different experience, but the hope is that the developers will fine-tune this later, since finding Citadels is incredibly punishing right now.

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Check out our other Path of Exile 2 guides and features

• Path of Exile 2: How to get and use Precursor Tablets
• Path of Exile 2 Atlas system, explained
• Path of Exile 2 Delirium guide