‘Path of Exile 2’ Is Shaking up Its Endgame Content in the Best Ways with ”Dawn of the Hunt” Season

Path of Exile 2 is nearing almost four months into its Early Access period, and for those well into its endgame, things have been getting a bit stale. But today’s showcase for the upcoming “Dawn of the Hunt” season shows that Grinding Gear Games is cooking. Nay, deep frying. With the announcement of a new Huntress class, five new Ascendancies, over 100 new support gems, and more? Yeah, things are about to get real. But if you’re worried about the state of endgame activities in Path of Exile 2, you’re about to be pleasantly surprised.

bigger atlas, more maps, new ways to die

For Path of Exile 2‘s “Dawn of the Hunt,” the goal is to make things engaging. Not just some things, but all things.

“Dawn of the Hunt” will introduce an expanded Atlas tree with 10 additional points available to earn. This allows players to customize how they want to tweak their endgame Waystones even further. Additionally, seven new unique maps will appear, all with their own distinct mechanics and encounters.

The live stream features a few of those new maps. In one map, you’ll enter a forest with several rune-carved stones. After traveling around the map to activate all the stones, an energy storm will erupt in a centralized location, spawning 10 waves of bosses that players must defeat.

Another map, reminiscent of Path of Exile‘s “Lake of Kalandra” league, will send players to a fractured lake full of mirrored enemies. Much like the Lake of Kalandra, the map terrain will gradually rise from the water when approached, leading the player to a Fragmented Mirror at the end. As expected, the Mirror gives players a chance to form a custom-crafted ring or amulet with rule-breaking amounts of prefixes or suffixes.

The Silent Cave, another unique map, features groups of Essence-trapped monsters with a boss in the middle. Players can choose to release the surrounding Essences for rewards, which further empowers the boss. Or, they can go straight to the boss, completing the map for lesser rewards. Four new Essences – Hysteria, Delirium, Horror, and Insanity – will be available, granting unique modifiers when applied to gear.

‘Path of Exile 2’ introduces Rogue Exiles to kill you further

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? Rogue Exiles, that’s what. In “Dawn of the Hunt,” Path of Exile 2 will introduce 12 distinct rogue exiles that can appear on maps. These exiles will challenge players in a duel to the death, bringing their unique skills and personalities to the fray.

Rogue Exiles will fight just like a normal player would, including dodge rolling, avoiding abilities with smart pathfinding, and even smart targeting. It’s almost like being in a PvP match, with Rogues even bearing actual equipment you’d find for yourself (and benefiting from its stats)!

If you’re able to slay an Exile with a powerful Unique item equipped, guess what? That item is yours, now. I said it’s a fight to the death, and once you defeat a Rogue Exile, you’ll pry their gear off their cold corpses.

Endgame gets a facelift

Once finishing Path of Exile 2‘s campaign, players are thrust straight into the endgame with no questions asked. An NPC gives you a generic “complete 15 maps” quest and sets you on your way. It’s simple, stale, and not very exciting.

“Dawn of the Hunt” brings a revitalized vision of mapping, tasking players to cleanse various Corrupted Nexus scattered along their Atlas. Throughout your Atlas, many maps will contain a growing corruption, and players must travel to each to cleanse them, disposing of enemies and unique bosses. Defeating a boss rids a map of corruption, which coalesces into crystalized power, granting players additional Atlas points. Once a Corrupted Nexus is completed, all remaining corrupted maps will become cleansed. Thus, introducing new monsters and bosses with their own modifiers and rewards.

Cleansed maps will drop Fractured Orbs, reintroducing one of Path of Exile‘s most powerful modifiers – Fractured Mods. And while jumping from map to map will be more exciting, what about Towers. You know, those things everyone groans at, throwing their lowest tier map into to finish as quickly as possible?

boring towers no more in ‘Path of Exile 2’

We are so back, baby. Towers in Path of Exile 2‘s “Dawn of the Hunt” are the cherry on top of a multi-layered endgame cake.

Previously, Towers were sporadically scattered around your Atlas but were virtually unavoidable. For your maps to have any chance of containing unique modifiers or mechanics, you have to run through a Tower. Well, that’s still the case, but “Dawn of the Hunt” drastically reduces the number of towers while heavily improving their impact.

Path of Exile 2 will soon have one-third the number of Towers on the Atlas. As for the Tower maps themselves, their layouts have been changed, with multiple mechanics present and unique bosses to take down. Inserting tablets into Towers has a massively increased effect, inherently containing double the number of modifiers. Additionally, running higher-tiered maps on Towers will now increase the amount of mechanics applied by tablets and the amount of surrounding maps affected by their influence. Finally, Towers will feel worthwhile to engage with, rather than something you’d rather skip past.

A whole new set of unique tablets will also be available. Including a tablet that allows players to run any map around a Tower, regardless of having a connecting path.

Path of Exile 2 “Dawn of the Hunt” will launch April 4, 2025, bringing a brand new league and a complete economy reset.