Path of Exile 2's upcoming content update is holding back PoE 1's next league

Path of Exile 1's Settlers of Kalguur league has lasted for over six months now, and it's not going away anytime soon. A recent update from GGG confirmed that they cannot promise any release date for 3.26, but they did shed some light on the situation. Long story short: the entire development team is devoted to Path of Exile 2 right now.

The insight came from Jonathan Rogers, the game director for both games, who explains that they were "overconfident" with their estimations, saying:

"...I just kept thinking, we still have time, we still have time. And then we didn't have time anymore. Now we still have a lot to learn about how to run two games simultaneously. We were overconfident. We still need to work out how to structure our studio to make this possible."

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Path of Exile 2's endgame polishing woes may lead to a milestone eight-month League in the first game

The dust has settled on Kalguur for a long time (Image via GGG)

Leagues are the seasonal update cycle for Path of Exile, and like any other live-service ARPG, these updates are the lifeblood to keep the game fresh. Path of Exile 1's ongoing League, Settlers of Kalguur (3.25) is its most successful on launch, but also its longest.

Originally supposed to arrive in October, the 3.26 update was delayed until at least January 2025 right after the announcement of Path of Exile 2. Settlers of Kalguur underwent a full reset — economy, ladder, and all — as a band-aid refill for the long wait.

As over half a year has passed since the update, the prolonged dry economy has left many PoE1 loyalists scratching their heads. GGG finally broke their silence today with some possibly disheartening news for those who want to stick to the first game still.

The simple answer is that GGG does not have a big enough crew to sustain both games with fresh updates right now. Path of Exile 2 had landslide success on its paid Early-Access launch, registering over one million key purchases.

While its half-a-campaign is one of the most exhilarating spiritual successor of Diablo 2, the endgame is another story altogether. Numerous issues abound, from balancing/tuning problems to a rising beginner-unfriendly economy owing to an Exalt inflation.

Today, Jonathan Rogers explained that GGG does not have the development bandwidth to work on both 3.26 in the first game and a content update in Path of Exile 2. The big patch 0.1.1 switched a lot of things around, but we are yet to see a big balance patch in the new game barring some week-one nerfs.

Path of Exile 2 fans can rest assured that this balance pass is coming with a big economy reset and update 0.2.0 in February or March 2025. However, those who prefer the more chill nature of Path of Exile 1 have an indefinite wait head, as GGG will probably have to do some post-patch maintenance for a few weeks, even after 0.2.0, before they can turn their attention to the first game.

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Check out our other guides on the game:

• Skill Gems and Gemcutting guide
• Endgame systems guide
• Item Crafting guide
• Runes and Sockets guide
• Energy Shield, Armor, and Evasion explained