Rockers are you a fan of dungeon crawlers or a fan of the now iconic Diablo 2? Since its release in 2013, Path of Exile has often been considered the spiritual successor of the Blizzard classic. So Path of Exile fans get ready because Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath is coming!
Last Tuesday, Grinding Gear Games announced the next expansion to Path of Exile called The Fall of Oriath. The new expansion will feature six new acts, divine customization, new items, locations, skills, bosses, and a new enemy type of divine creatures known as Gods.
The Fall of Oriath expansion will not cost players a single dollar, which is a great selling price for most gamers. The Fall of Oriath will be available to Xbox One gamers when Path of Exile releases on Xbox One later this year. Players will not be able to bring their characters from PC to the Xbox One version. Path of Exile designer Nick Kolan had this to say about keeping the Xbox One and PC versions separate:
“No, they’re two separate realms and there are two reasons for that. For one, we’re very, very conscious about exploits. We have gone to great measures to prevent ‘dupes’ for example. So any amazing item found has been found legitimately. If you could then take that amazing item over to the new Xbox realm, where there’s brand new players but you’re already level 99 and you got these crazy items, it doesn’t feel very fair. [For two], some skills will just function differently on the Xbox version, like the totem skills. So we need to keep them separate for that reason as well.”
Players will learn that their actions in the first four acts directly impact Lioneye’s Watch as well as the rest of the world.
“So this is Lioneye’s Watch in Part 2. It’s day time. They’ve built a wharf. You arrived on this ship. There’s new NPCs. They have new quests for you. You’re on a new mission. Your actions previously in the game have resulted in these gods rising up, and now they’re all over Wraeclast. They’re battling for domain. They’re these immortal beings. So they don’t really care for humanity. They’re just going to trample over whatever. They just want to be powerful. So you have to put a stop to them.”
Nick Kolan and Grinding Gear’s vision for The Fall of Oriath expansion included this,
“We’re really trying to make the second half of the game feel both reminiscent and fresh. And we’re trying to make it so that you play Act 1-10 because they’re really fun, not just to get to Maps (end game content). So about 50-percent of the areas in Part 2 are brand new. We’re adding a kind of ridiculous amount of content.”
The new divine creatures will not be a cake walk to take down with their sole goal of crushing your hopes and dreams. With the strengths of these gods, players will need to learn how to customize their characters using the Pantheon System.
“Every time we do an expansion we always try to add something new. Like a new mechanic. Something for people to really dig into. Well now we’re adding the Pantheon system. If you kill a god, which is not easy, you get to claim their power. Their power takes the form of defensive benefits.
Each god has a specific option. For example the Brine King’s [benefit] says ‘If you’ve been frozen, you can’t be frozen again for a short time. If you’ve been stunned, you can’t be stunned again for a short time.’ You would choose this if you’re going up against a boss who has a lot of cold damage or a lot of stuns. So you don’t get stun locked/freeze locked.”
From the sound of it, each god will have their own special abilities that the play can inherit similar to that of the Dragonborn in Skyrim.
“There’s four major god powers and 12 minor god powers. Each god gives one specific set of defensive benefits. You can only have one major god and one minor god power active at a time. You choose which god power is most beneficial to you at the time. The god powers are also upgradeable through the Atlas System which is our endgame map system. Major god powers have pretty significant benefits and have a lot more room for growth, so they get 3 upgrades. The minor gods offer more general, potentially less powerful benefits and their upgrade path is narrower.”
The next league is set to come out on March 3rd, which will have diehard players hysterical with the vast possibilities of the Legacy league.
“The next League is called Legacy. Basically it lets players play leagues of the past and even customize them and have multiple leagues active at once. We’re itemizing leagues basically. You can have three active at once, so they get to play their favorite league at their own pace. They can mix it with another league. They even get a chance to get the league exclusive items that were only available during those leagues while that league is active on that character. That’s just to sort of celebrate Path of Exile’s history before we change it forever. I.E. Getting rid of difficulties and adding literally more than double the story content. It’s a ridiculous update.”
Knowing that a game company wants its players to have fun while playing their game is a wonderful feeling when franchises such as Call of Duty or EA Sports games regurgitate the same product year after year. Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath expansion looks like it will offer a lot to players for no cost other than time and effort.
Quotes came from a post on MMOHuts.
