Path of Exile 2 release date gets three-week-long delay to ensure cross-game MTX compatibility in early access

The Path of Exile 2 release date for its early access has now been pushed back to December 6, 2024. A developer vlog was released earlier today (October 29, 2024) on the game's official YouTube handle, where Jonathan Rogers, the Game Director himself, laid out the reason for the delay. Thankfully, the game itself seems to be in a great state. The delay has more to do with "server side infrastructure work."

Path of Exile 2, the sequel to the long-running landmark ARPG, is set to go live for an early-access phase for PS5, Xbox, and PC. It will exist concurrently alongside the original game, and all player accounts will retain numerous live-service goodies across both games, including cosmetics. As it turns out, this specifically is the problem causing the delay in Path of Exile 2's early access release.

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"This one's totally on me": Path of Exile 2 Game Director explains why the early access release has been delayed

On the latest vlog accessible from the Path of Exile YouTube handle, Game Director Jonathan Rogers personally took responsibility for the delay, citing a scheduling miscalculation:

"This one's totally on me. I just didn't have enough time to make sure we could get it done."

This specifically refers to a broader logistics problem to ensure that cosmetics and microtransactions carry over from Path of Exile 1 to 2. The original Path of Exile is slightly over 11 years old now, and rolling over this much account data into all-new systems across all platforms means a lot of work and newfound complications.

While the developers have enough confidence in the level of polish in the current version of Path of Exile 2 to make it a public-access client, the scope of this "server-side infrastructure work" is something they had underestimated.

The developers intend to make good on their promise, as the Path of Exile 2 Game Director continues in his explanation:

"We have to get everything perfect so that nobody loses anything they paid for, and nobody has their account broken."

While Path of Exile 2 lifts a lot from the first game, it also extends the functionality of the first game's systems in meaningful ways that make it a big departure from the design and balance of the original.

Although the game's classes, familiar faces, skill gems, and, of course, the cosmetics return, this departure into its own game is why Path of Exile 2 is so highly anticipated despite a lot of continued community interest in Path of Exile 1.

GGG, the studio behind Path of Exile 2, will go live next on a big developer stream with important reveals, where they talk about what to expect in terms of content and endgame in Path of Exile 2 early access.