Path of Exile – A 2022 Retrospective

In order to usher in the New Year for their free to play action-RPG Path of Exile, Grinding Gear Games brings us this retrospective fact sheet of sorts that lists a number of important or amusing milestones they were able to hit throughout 2022. This includes four major expansions, plenty of in-game events, their own take on the Battle Pass system in the form of the Kirac Vault, and more.

Check it out:

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already made it to the end of 2022! As we start to welcome in the new year, we wanted to take a moment to look back on the year that was.

In 2022:

• We launched four expansions: Siege of the Atlas, Sentinel, Lake of Kalandra and The Forbidden Sanctum.
• We broke our concurrent player record this year with 270,260 players playing simultaneously on the main realm!
• Zana disappeared, just in time for four Eldritch Horrors to attack.
• We overhauled the Atlas, transforming it from four separate regions to one and by doing so, added yet another huge passive tree to Path of Exile.
• We added the Gem and Flask Stash Tabs to the store, which introduced stash affinities for Gems and Flasks.
• We added Archnemesis to the game.
• We removed Archnemesis from the game.
• We introduced the Kirac Vault Pass, a Battle Pass-like system that awards exclusive unique item skins.
• We hosted a thrilling Boss Kill Event for Siege of the Atlas, with the top prize being claimed by none other than Ben.
• We hosted another Boss Kill Event in Sentinel, with the top prize being claimed again by Ben.
• We hosted a third Boss Kill Event in Lake of Kalandra. You can probably guess who claimed the top prize. (Spoiler: It was Ben)
• We introduced Uber versions of new and old bosses, including the infamous Uber Uber Elder.
• We made it so you could have multiple influences on a map.
• We updated our Challenge Rewards system to give cooler rewards that upgrade when you complete more challenges.
• We expanded our office onto two more floors of the building we’re in.
• We fixed the mangled text bug, which had been in the game since 2016!
• We added official controller support for PC.
• We announced Exilecon 2023, which will be held from July 29-30 in Auckland, New Zealand! We’re so excited for this, as we get to show off more of what we’ve been working on for Path of Exile 2 and Mobile!
• We revealed Kalandra, the mysterious entity behind the Mirror of Kalandra.
• We introduced Atlas Memories, a new type of endgame item that lets you explore parts of the Atlas with juiced up encounters and rewards.
• We brought back the Trialmaster fight, letting you challenge him for his Unique rewards.
• We added foil versions of pinnacle boss Unique Items.
• We rebalanced and overhauled over 100 Unique Items.
• We buffed Cleave’s radius by +2.
• We banished the bandit Beyond demons and replaced them with the demonic horrors from Scourge.
• We introduced lifeforce to Harvest, making its crafts tradable.
• We caused chaos in the Standard economy by subtly changing what Divine Orbs and Exalted Orbs are valued at.
• We overhauled the Trickster Ascendancy, giving it a bunch of new toys.
• We introduced 8 new Skill and Support gems and 8 new Vaal Skills, including Vaal Cleave. Did we mention that Cleave’s radius was buffed by +2? This was very important.
• We introduced the Forbidden Sanctum, our take on a roguelike game mode within Path of Exile.
• We overhauled a plethora of Endgame Unique Weapons, including fan-favourites like Starforge and Atziri’s Disfavour.
• We officially released Ruthless, a new game mode in Path of Exile that makes the game more difficult by limiting player power through extreme item scarcity.
• We revived our Build of the Week series.
• We added 49 Unique Items to the game, 13 of them designed by winners of our Boss Kill Competitions (and 5 of them designed by Ben…)
  • The uniques the winners designed are:
  • The Burden of Truth (Ben)
  • Echoes of Creation (Ben)
  • Call of the Void (Ben)
  • Progenesis (Ben)
  • Dawnstrider (Ben)
  • The Eternal Struggle (Waggle)
  • Impossible Escape (Steelmage)
  • Oriath’s End (Steelmage)
  • Soul Ascension (Zizaran)
  • Rational Doctrine (rawlnx)
  • Nimis (Jungroan)
  • Entropic Devastation (GucciPradas)
  • Annihilation’s Approach (imexile)
• We introduced 18 new currency items, including the coveted Recombinators that were introduced in the Sentinel Expansion. A lot of these are still floating around on Standard!
• We posted roughly 2128 lines of patch notes for PC and 1861 lines of patch notes for Console.
• We sold 212587 wetas this year!

Thank you so much for your support in 2022. We look forward to another amazing year for Path of Exile!