Early access to Path of Exile 2 has a 25 hour campaign and a surprisingly robust endgame

Path of Exile 2's early access launch is just a few weeks away, five years after it was first announced. Yesterday, Grinding Gear Games released four hours of information on a live stream. This included what classes you could play, how long the campaign would be, and what the meaty endgame will look like at max level.

If you haven't spent hundreds of dollars on Path of Exile 1 yet, you will need to purchase one of the new early access supporter pack to play in early access. The basic pack costs $30 and includes shop currency to buy extra stash space. You can spend $460 for the 'Liberator Of Wraeclast' Supporter pack, which includes cosmetics, a T-shirt, Hoodie, and physical art book. GGG says that you can upgrade your pack at any time, and that the packs will only last for six months to complete development.

The build that will be available on December 6th (with pre-loading a few days earlier) has three of the six campaign acts, and six of the 12 classes. The truncated version of the story will take you around 25 hours to complete. You'll need to repeat it twice to reach level 65 for early access. The same actions will not be repeated in the final game, where the level cap will increase to 100. However, it will roughly resemble the journey towards PoE 2's ending.

PoE 2's new blood includes warrior, monks, mercenaries, sorceress, and witch, two of the most popular classes from PoE 1. Each class will begin at a different place in PoE 2’s skill tree, which is as massive as the one from the first game. Each of them will have two of the three sub-classes (or "ascendancies") available. Reddit users are already analyzing them and trying to figure out possible builds. I don't have to do any analysis. I can see that the witch could become a bloodmage that casts deadly spells and drains her life. My starting class is already set.

The endgame is the most difficult part of PoE if you are not a dedicated player. PoE 2 will build on many of the features in the first game. GGG plans to bring back seasonal mechanics, or leagues, over time. The'mapping system' from PoE 1 is returning, but you'll be jumping into more randomized dungeons or boss encounters in order to earn permanent upgrades for the character. The entire system is designed to keep players blasting for hundreds hours, even in the early version.