Grinding Gear Games took audience questions for 50 minutes after its ExileCon 2026 keynote, and the Path of Exile 2 developer Q&A added a lot to what the stage show covered five weeks before the game’s December 11 full release. Three answers got posts of their own: controller and mouse hot swapping is in 1.0, Steam achievements are coming and separate-account console co-op is likely, and the Shadow’s Infiltrator can place totems that detonate every trap in range. Here is everything else.
Trial of the Ancestors misses 1.0, and a third Ranger ascendancy might not
The third ascendancy trial, Trial of the Ancestors, will not be ready for launch and has no time frame, though the developers said it is important and “shouldn’t be too much longer”, hopefully alongside improvements to the Trial of the Sekhemas. A third Ranger ascendancy “will hopefully make it for 1.0”, with 1.1 as the fallback. New classes will keep arriving with two ascendancies each, and more secret discoveries are planned, though not mainly as ascendancies.
Conquerors of Wraeclast runs 1,000 against 1,000 battles
The launch league simulates the parts of a battle off screen with a simpler model, which lets fights reach a thousand troops a side. The developers want a battle overview where the minimap sits, ideally before launch, and clearer faction borders on the castle map are not built yet. Early designs had players gathering wood and food; that was cut. In solo self-found, the faction war still runs but only among SSF players, and the developers asked for feedback on that choice. The developers also realised on stage that a player alone in a private league could own all 100 castles and stack item rarity, and said they will fix it.
Most of the 1.0 buffs are in support gems
The developers said the patch notes will include plenty of nerfs, while “the buff section is the supports”. Broken supports, including one that created level one minions no matter what, have been fixed, and the goal is that every recommended support is a good pick. A way to recut support gems is being discussed and might arrive during 1.0, and uncut gems could be sold for gold late in the campaign. The 1.0 patch notes are expected about a week before launch.
No big difficulty jump until balance settles
Endgame difficulty will not rise much for 1.0, because raising it while removing power risks “every character sucks and nothing’s viable”. A harder top end will come once things are stable. Diminishing map portals stay, flat life will not return to the passive tree, and the Atlas tree stays a full-allocation tree with multi-choice nodes, its condensed nodes now about five times stronger.
Warriors, ailments and the pause screen are reworked
Warrior and mace effects are being redone so aftershocks are cheaper and can change damage type, and almost all fixed attack times that could not be sped up are gone. Necrotic poisons stack without limit, poison now shows on the life bar, Chaos damage over time applies Decay, and corrupted blood cracks the life orb so that portion takes double damage until healed over. The pause rework lets players use the inventory and change gear while paused, with tooltips on buff icons. Charms can now have up to six slots, though the developers said they still “don’t feel cool”.
Shield throwing failed, fishing got no comment
GGG tried hard to build a Duelist shield throw skill and could not make it work, but wants another attempt. Naming the Squire is a maybe. Fishing got “no comment”. The developers also noted that 2026 is Grinding Gear Games’ 20th anniversary.
