Shapeshift into a fearsome wolf, a devastating bear, or a fire-breathing wyvern when Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids launches this December 12. Play for free from December 12 – 15 on PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store, and experience the Druid’s multifaceted spellkit, a new dungeon-crafting league mechanic, and a powerful new Pinnacle endgame boss. 

• Transform into a Bear, Wolf, or Wyvern as the Druid and ascend into the Oracle or Shaman. 
• Construct a temple in the new Path of Exile 2: Fate of the Vaal League and challenge both the Royal Architect and a new Pinnacle Boss: Atziri
• Reworks and balance overhaul, including in-game performance optimisation and toned down Delirium fog.
• Over 30 new Support Gems, including multiple Lineage Supports, and an expanded passive tree with over 250 passive skills. 
• Free Weekend to be held from December 12 – 15.  

Nature’s Fury Takes Form 

With his homeland destroyed by the King in the Mists, the Druid shed the last fragments of his humanity, wandering around the forests of Ogham. Now reawakened, he seeks what remains of his past and is embarking on a journey to find his lost wife and regain his humanity. The Druid wields a new type of weapon, the Talisman, which calls upon the power of Draiocht to shapeshift into an animal. Each Talisman grants access to a chosen form, allowing the Druid to shapeshift into something far more lethal:

• Wolf: Channel lunar energy into a relentless assault, augmenting your attacks with cold damage to freeze your enemies. As a true alpha, the wolf form is able to summon a pack of minions to fight alongside it. 
• Bear: Raw devastation personified, build up Rage to crush enemies, with each roar amplifying its destructive capacity.
• Wyvern: Soar above the battlefield and feed upon freshly slain foes to empower its abilities. It is also able to unleash lightning, fire, and sweeping aerial destruction upon its foes. 

In human form, the Druid commands earth and storm – volcanoes erupt beneath his enemies, roots bind them in place, and thunder tears through the ranks. Take control of the new Spell Totem skill, which creates a totem to automatically cast any chosen spell for a time. Creating a totem requires endurance or power charges, which you can generate by consuming rage as a Bear or by eating corpses as a Wyvern. 

Ascend Into the Wild’s Wrath

Weaponise nature’s fury and ascend into the Shaman, who consumes Rage to amplify catastrophic spell effects – meteors, elemental storms, and relentless magical force.Harnessing ancient Azmerian Maji knowledge, the Shaman can draw immense power from newly awakened Runes and Idols. Upon unlocking Wisdom of the Maji, each Rune and Idol gains exclusive Shaman-only modifiers, opening a wide array of advanced build customisation options. By investing in the Bringer of the Apocalypse node, the Shaman ascends into a living conduit of elemental devastation. Sustained elemental damage triggers cascading multi-elemental storms, overwhelming any foe that dares to challenge nature’s wrath.

Distort time and fate, with the Druid’s second ascendancy class – the Oracle – to predict movements before they occur with Foresight to receive premonitions of future skill use; following these visions by activating the same skill grants substantially increased damage. Converging Paths further enhances combat precision at key moments when enemies are susceptible to Freeze, Stun, or Electrocution, enabling the Oracle to trigger Moment of Vulnerability and merge future and present timelines to strike both simultaneously.

Upon ascending as an Oracle, more than 130 additional passives become available within the Druid tree. By investing in The Unseen Path, the Oracle draws power from alternate futures to access otherwise unattainable abilities such as Self-Sacrificing, which reduces minion Spirit Costs to increase total summons at the expense of higher reservation costs, or Corruption Endures, granting a rare chance to avoid death.

Rebalancing, Reworks, and Additional Support Gems

Over 30 new Support Gems, including multiple Lineage Supports, introduce significant build variety. These range from Accelerated Growth, causing volatile botanical detonations, to Tectonic Slams that include additional cascading slams, enabling each class to unleash devastating effects. 

This update introduces 11 new Unique items and extensive balance adjustments across dozens more. 21 Lineage Supports have been reworked, accompanied by nine entirely new additions. In addition to the two new Druid Ascendancies, nearly all existing Ascendancies have received balance updates, with some undergoing more substantial revisions, such as the Smith of Kitava.

Beyond the Druid skills, more than ninety active skills across all classes have been rebalanced. Completing this broad overhaul, the passive tree has been expanded with over 250 new passive skills. 

To improve combat clarity, monster density will no longer increase in higher-tier maps. Instead, difficulty and rewards will scale proportionally: rather than 40% more monsters, enemies will now provide 40% more item drops, 40% more experience, and have 40% increased life – excluding bosses. Monster speed modifiers have also been reduced to help prevent them swarming players. As for visual improvements, this also applies to Delirium fog which has been toned down significantly.

CPU load, multithreading, and performance optimisation have also been major focuses. Players can expect at least a 25% increase in frame rates and far fewer frame spikes – particularly noticeable on consoles. Additional performance improvements are actively in development and will continue to roll out over the coming months.

Conquer Rising Corruption in the Fate of the Vaal

Return to the height of Vaal civilization. Queen Atziri, driven by the impossible pursuit of eternal youth, prepares to sacrifice her empire. Subdue the Royal Architect and Atziri’s loyal followers to resist a past that could yet be rewritten. 

With corruption resurfacing across Wraeclast, defeat the malignant energy from Vaal beacons rising from the ground, and redirect their essence back. By energizing the beacons, a gateway to Lira Vaal, an ancient temple will open. 

Customise Your Temple Crawl 

Beacon encounters unlock access to temple rooms. Six can be assembled to form a layout of one’s choosing. With each run, some chambers endure while others are consumed by ruin. Continued beacon clearing offers new rooms, greater complexity, and escalating reward potential. More than a dozen room types are available, each offering different unique enemies, mechanics, and reward pools. 

The placement of each room matters, in order to get maximum returns. For example, players will be able to place a Commander to control a Garrison of Troops, which makes the monsters harder and more rewarding. Upon running the temple, a few of the rooms will destabilise, leaving it up to you to add six more rooms each time, increasing the size of the temple. Discover Medallions that reshape room behaviour, double-corruption opportunities, and experimental Vaal mechanisms capable of replacing limbs with mechanical ones!

New Vaal Crafting Mechanisms

Take control of the power of Corruption through special crafting mechanisms found in the Temple: 

• Juatalotli’s Triumph: Alters a corrupted Vaal Unique Item, substituting its modifiers with Vaal-specific variants.
• Precursor Machine: Corrupts Tablets using ancient energy
• Jiquani’s Triumph: Distorts Soul Cores
• Kishara’s Acquisition: Attempts to salvage socketables from equipment, with varying results of success!
   

Face The Royal Architect & A New Pinnacle Boss: Atziri

Xipocado, devoted to Atziri, stands between the player and deeper temple access. Overcoming him grants entry to additional crafting tools and a step closer to confronting the queen. Worshipped for her unparalleled beauty, Atziri was the infamous Queen who led her devotees into downfall; now she stands as a new Pinnacle Boss. Rewrite history and alter the fate of the Vaal. 

One of the rewards from defeating her corrupted form is Atziri’s Rule, a powerful new staff that elevates all corrupted gems and enables players to exchange life for increased damage output. While wielded, Mirrors of Refraction periodically manifest across the battlefield; projectiles fired into these mirrors erupt into a splitting nova and can chain from one mirror to the next, dramatically amplifying offensive potential.

Rise of the Abyssals Goes Core 

The Abyssals will remain as a permanent endgame mechanic, complete with Atlas passives and new endgame Tablets. Close the fissures, and earn Uniques and other valuable rewards. Abyssal crafting and Instilling on Waystones has been removed, to reduce unnecessary friction and visual clutter. To account for this, modifiers on Tablets have been substantially buffed. Following the defeat of the Arbiter of Ash, players will also gain the ability to upgrade Tablets to Rare quality with four modifiers using standard currency.

Awaken the Wild Within

The Last of the Druids launches simultaneously on December 12 across all platforms. New players may join at any time via an Early Access Supporter Pack, which includes access to the expansion and exclusive cosmetics via on PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store.