Path of Exile 2: What happens when you die?

Death isn’t the end in Path of Exile 2, but there are some brutal penalties for the occasional moments when you die. You’ll likely experience some of them early on, but throughout most of the game, death isn’t all that bad — some moments will make you want to tear your hair out, but for the most part, it’s not a big deal! It only gets stressful in the endgame, which makes perfect sense. Unless, of course, you’re playing hardcore.

Hardcore League has a death penalty that ought to be pretty obvious in Path of Exile 2 — if you die for any reason, that’s it, that character’s done. They get sent back to the Normal Leagues and cannot return to the Hardcore League server. But for everyone else, here are the various death penalties you can encounter.

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What happens when you die in Path of Exile 2? Examining various death penalties

The most common penalty when you die in Path of Exile 2 is the resetting of a map and the loss of dropped items. I found out about this one pretty early when I defeated one of the bosses - Rathbreaker. After defeating him, you must deal with all the enemies still on the field. If you die to them, the map resets and you lose all the loot you didn’t get a chance to pick up.

At least I didn't lose out on a Unique or Exalted Orb this time ... (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Thankfully, you still have credit for the boss kill, but for other parts of a map, you just have to respawn from the closest checkpoint and get back to work, killing a new set of unique enemies on the way to your destination.

There are several fights where you could die to enemies after the boss is dead, like The Executioner. This is especially troublesome if it’s a fight that had a permanent boost, like The King in the Mists. If you don’t pick up its item, you’ll have to return to this boss and fight them again.

Another relatively minor death penalty in Path of Exile 2 occurs when you die during the Trial of the Sekehmas/Trial of Chaos. If you die during these, you must start over from the beginning of the trial and you will lose the item you sacrificed to begin in the first place. Thankfully, in the Trial of the Sekhemas, if you still have Honor left, you can keep going. Once Honor is depleted, the Trial is over, no matter what.

If you perish in a Trial of Chaos, that's it - no extra attempts. (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

The worst death penalties in Path of Exile 2 happen when you die in the endgame. If you die while on a map in the Atlas of Worlds, you’ll lose 10% of your exp bar every time. Not 10% of what you currently have, but 10% total. It can be incredibly brutal to experience, that’s for sure.

This is on top of losing the Waystone you provided and completely bricking that map. Now, you’ll have to provide another Waystone and put that in the Atlas to attempt further maps. If you want to give that map another go, it will be time to cough up another one of those Waystones. At least they don’t appear to be incredibly rare.

This will almost certainly change as time goes on and more Chapters are added to the game. For example, the first three chapters on Normal have no exp death penalty when you die in Path of Exile 2. That will likely change to something like 5% in later chapters. We’ll update this whenever Grinding Gear Games changes how it works.

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Check out our other Path of Exile 2 guides and features:

• Path of Exile 2: All Permanent stat bonuses you can get from the campaign
• How to get Waystones in Path of Exile 2
• Path of Exile 2 endgame systems guide: What to do once you beat the campaign