GGG revealed Path of Exile 2 1.0 at the ExileCon 2026 keynote. It launches free-to-play on December 11 (PST). The headline: two new classes, the Duelist and the Shadow, the last two campaign Acts, and a launch league built around raising an army, Conquerors of Wraeclast.
Everything below is from GGG's own Full Release page and GGG's ExileCon press release. Things shown only on stage wait for the patch notes.
The campaign is complete
- Acts 5 and 6 finish the six-Act story. You return to Oriath to end the Twilight Order and the Beast.
- 24 new areas, from the slums and estates to the Temple District and the Grand Arena.
- 18 new unique bosses and over 20 new Champion Rare encounters, each with its own mechanics.
New class: the Shadow
- Fights with daggers, traps and shades. Shades are shadow copies that distract enemies and copy your attacks.
- Brings Stealth, a new mechanic. Monsters can't see you until you get close. Stealth also powers up dagger skills.
- Traps are a new weapon type, with eight trap types. Set them in stealth and they go off when you strike, in the order you threw them. Each trap combines with at least three others.
- is a new resource that powers up stealth strikes. Eclipse turns every attack into a stealth strike for a short time.
- Each kill resets Stealth's cooldown.
- Ascendancies at launch: Assassin and Infiltrator.
New class: the Duelist
- A sword class built on Stances, another new mechanic. Ready Stance powers up sword skills.
- Sand Stance comes from stunning enemies. Blood Stance comes from parrying and makes your hits cause bleeding.
- Knight Ascendancy: recruit a Squire you equip with weapons and armour, who can use any melee skill gem. War Banners give bonuses themed on Wraeclast's old empires. Mounted Charge is a chariot charge that scatters and stuns.
- GGG's page lists a second Ascendancy, Master-at-Arms, but GGG's press release says it arrives later. We'll confirm when the patch notes are out.
League: Conquerors of Wraeclast
- Raise an army. Recruit troops with different strengths, then fight alongside them.
- Campaign: over 70 new points of interest and over 20 missions (defend villages, assault forts, break gates).
- Endgame stronghold. Pick one of three factions. Each has its own fortress and troops, with over 20 buildings and upgrades.
- Commanders run your Atlas. Give them troops and Waystones and they clear maps for you. You can have up to three. They can also do Towers or hunt rewards with Tablets.
- Conquer Wraeclast. After the league storyline, your faction fights every other player's faction over more than 100 castles. Holding one gives more item rarity, special maps, and a launch point on the Atlas.
- Reforging. Castle treasuries hold a new crafting material. It swaps a modifier you don't want for a random fractured one, which stays locked through later crafts.
- New endgame storyline: stop the awakening of the Blood Lord.
Everything else on GGG's page
- Uniques: over 40 new ones, and more than 70 reworked.
- Over 200 new base item types.
- Atlas passive tree: cut down to 70 stronger nodes. You earn points as you go, from objectives, boss kills and special maps.
- New skills: Molten Forge (mace) and Soul Extraction (chaos).
- Reworks for the Mercenary, Infernalist, Blood Mage and Acolyte of Chayula.
- Skills and supports: new skills for classes that lacked them. Support gems rebalanced with better recommendations.
- Passive tree: a major rework with hundreds of new stats. All Jewel Sockets now sit inside the clusters.
- Mercenary: reloading reworked. Ammo reloads in the background while you use other types.
- Performance: up to 25% more CPU performance and lower memory use.
- Mac: the game comes to Mac with the Full Release.
- In total at 1.0: 10 classes, 26 Ascendancies, over 320 skills, over 400 uniques, over 150 endgame maps.
- Five new Supporter Packs.
What we're still waiting for
The 1.0 patch notes, the launch hour, and the full Atlas and passive trees. Things shown only on stage, like boss names and individual skill numbers, wait for GGG's written notes. The other two promised classes come after launch.
What changes on PoE Source
- New class and Ascendancy pages, built from GGG's own text.
- Passive trees, Atlas trees and builds stay on 0.5 until launch. The 0.5 league runs to December 11, so they stay useful until then. We rebuild them from the patch notes, one at a time.
- A Conquerors of Wraeclast lesson in the League track once the details are confirmed.
On PoE Source
- Become the Darkness — the Shadow teaser
- PoE 2 1.0 release date
- Covens of Umbra revealed — the PoE 1 side of the keynote
- Learn the basics before launch
Summarized for PoE Source; see official sources for full details.
Sources: Path of Exile 2 Full Release (GGG, official) · ExileCon 2026 Announcements (GGG forum) · GGG press release, quoted by RPG Site · Conquerors of Wraeclast announcement (Path of Exile, X)