| Flame #3 · Fri Nov 6 2026 |
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| The Lanternwatch |
| 83 stories, 33 shorts and 24 guides this week. Here is what mattered. |
 | From the Lanternwatch |
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| Wraeclast gets finished, two doors still shut |
| From the watch, the night of ExileCon. |
| Every exile in the Drift knows the door to Wraeclast. You come through it the hard way, washed up or cast out onto a cursed continent that wants you dead, and you fight your way inland. Today at ExileCon, Grinding Gear Games said that land is finally getting finished. Path of Exile 2 leaves early access on December 11, two years and four major updates after it opened, and 1.0 closes the campaign with Acts 5 and 6. |
| Cairn has been mapping it the whole time, and his satchel shows it. When early access opened there were 40 bosses to mark. There are now more than 100, with over 150 endgame maps and eight pinnacle bosses. Six classes with 175 skills became ten with 320. Vex sat through all of it unmoved, until the new class walked on: the Shadow, a stealth and trap class whose Infiltrator drops cog totems that set off every trap in range at once. Vex said nothing. Her tail said "fine, it's good." Flicker has already claimed the Duelist's new Knight, squire and war banners included, as a fellow announcer. |
| Then the honest part. Game director Jonathan Rogers said it plainly on stage: "We did promise you guys 12 classes and yes there are only 10. Now the other two will come, just not immediately." No date, no names. We stand at sealed doors for a living, so we respect a studio that points at its own and says so out loud. Lag has checked the two blank spots on Cairn's class chart every frame since, in case one opens early. |
| The launch league is Conquerors of Wraeclast: armies, castles and sieges, with factions fighting over 100 shared castles. We have never held a castle. We hold a door, and that is enough work. If the Hollow ever learn to lay siege, the practice will help. For anyone who never left the first Wraeclast, Path of Exile 1 gets its own league, 3.30 Covens of Umbra, on November 13. Two Wraeclasts, both still bright. A world stays alive as long as someone keeps walking inland. |
| The Lanternwatch |
| The 30-second version Path of Exile 2's new Shadow class is built on stealth and traps |
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| The real story: Everything announced at the ExileCon 2026 keynote |
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| This week in 30 seconds |
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| A blood-red Lapras misprint became our second short past 100,000 views, five days after Pokémon fans found it. Crimson Desert's expansion kept the guide shorts busy, and WoW: Forever's Shaman players handed us a protest. These are the three most watched this week. |
Pokémon TCG Lapras misprint looks splattered in blood 102K views | Crimson Desert: how to romance and get married in Charting the Unknown 31K views | WoW: Forever's Shaman Discord locked down in protest 16K views |
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| New shorts most days on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. |
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| The big stories |
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| Path of Exile 2 1.0 launches December 11 with 10 classes, the promised other two come later Two years of early access end December 11. Game director Jonathan Rogers owned the missing two classes on stage and gave no date for them. |
| GTA 6's Xbox download is 225 GB, and it fills more than half of a Series S Microsoft's own store catalog lists 225.34 GB. Pre-loading starts November 10, so Series S owners have a few days to start deleting. |
| WoW: Forever's launch ran on 251,136 GB of RAM and 70,480 CPU cores, Blizzard reveals 3,924 virtual machines on launch night, and players reported almost no queues or disconnects, a big change from a beta Blizzard admitted it wasn't ready for. |
| God of War Laufey slips three months to May 20, 2027, as Santa Monica chases its "fullest potential" February 16 is gone. Santa Monica cites finishing touches and names no specific problem. |
| Sony confirms PS6 is on schedule, will start spending on its development in April 2027 Sony's CFO put a date on the spending, the fiscal year that starts April 2027. Still no name, release date or price. |
| A two-person studio just sold 100,000 copies of its retro RPG in less than five days Queen's Domain launched October 30, and the 100,000 figure is the team's own. The Steam page already shows more than 2,000 user reviews. |
| All the news |
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| Guides worth your time |
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| Queen's Domain Progression Route: Where to Go Next and in What Order That two-person hit is a dense, looping island full of locked gates. Our route runs from the opening beach to the mausoleum door in order, with every wind gem, key and gargoyle statue you need on the way. Four Queen's Domain guides so far. |
| Crimson Desert: How to Recruit More Comrades in Charting the Unknown Our most read guide this week. Hold a festival, and the NPCs you have befriended join as Honorary Greymanes who can crew your ships. |
| AION 2 Ludra Raid Guide: Release Date, Item Level, Mechanics and Loot Ludra reopened November 4. Item level 2,800 for Normal, 3,000 for Hard, and all three stages of the fight. |
| Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Unit Composition and Team Building for Each Route Four lords' paths on one save, and which lord should get each shared recruit for the least support and Renown. |
| All guides |
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| A misprint goes big |
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101,715 views on our Pokémon TCG Lapras misprint short on YouTube as of Friday evening, five days after we posted it. It is our second short past 100,000, and our 33 new shorts this week drew 266,000 views between them. |
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| Question of the week |
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| Path of Exile 2 launches December 11 with 10 of the 12 classes it promised. Is that enough for a full launch, or should GGG have waited for all 12? |
| Hit reply and tell us. The best answer gets featured next week. |
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| The Lanternwatch: one email, Fridays. You signed up at outputlag.com. |
