Two years and change after Path of Exile 2 landed in Early Access, Grinding Gear Games has finally put a date on the finish line. The 1.0 Full Release arrives December 11, 2026, and it brings the two remaining campaign Acts, a brand new sword-wielding class, and a full endgame - at which point the game goes properly free-to-play across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.
The announcement came during Gamescom Opening Night Live on August 25 alongside a new trailer, and it closes a stretch that has run considerably longer than GGG originally floated. Path of Exile 2 opened its paid Early Access on December 6, 2024. December 11 puts the full launch a few days past the two-year mark.
The campaign finally ends
Path of Exile 2 shipped into Early Access with three Acts and a cross-difficulty loop that recycled them at higher tiers. Act 4 arrived in August 2025. The 1.0 release adds Acts 5 and 6, completing the six-act campaign GGG has been building toward since the game was first announced as a sequel back in 2019 - which also means the Cruel-difficulty replay of the early Acts stops being the stopgap it has been for two years.
That matters more than a content-count headline suggests. A lot of the criticism levelled at Path of Exile 2 during Early Access - pacing, campaign length, the sense that the story stopped mid-sentence - was structurally caused by an incomplete campaign. December is the first time anyone gets to judge it as a finished piece of design.
The Duelist arrives with swords
The trailer's headline reveal is the Duelist, and it is a genuine gap being filled. Path of Exile 2's Early Access classes have leaned on maces, crossbows, quarterstaves, spears and spells; the Duelist is the sword class, described by GGG as a master of both sword and shield built around fast, aggressive and adaptable melee.
Longtime Path of Exile players will recognise the name - the Duelist was one of the original game's seven core classes, and its Ascendancies included the Champion, the Slayer and the Gladiator. GGG has not said which Ascendancies the sequel's Duelist gets. What the trailer does show is a spread of new sword skills, which arrive with the class on December 11 rather than trickling in afterwards.
With the Duelist in, Path of Exile 2's launch roster covers the full spread of weapon archetypes the sequel has been building its skill system around - and swords have been conspicuously absent from a game whose entire combat pitch is weapon-driven skill trees.
A hundred endgame maps
The endgame is where Path of Exile 2 has taken the most sustained flak, and GGG says 1.0 ships a new one built around 100 endgame maps, each with its own boss encounter. The studio is holding back the details until closer to launch, which is its usual pattern - the deep-dive livestreams and patch notes tend to land in the weeks immediately before a major release.
For context on why this is the important number: Path of Exile 1's endurance comes almost entirely from its Atlas of Worlds endgame, which is where players spend hundreds of hours per league. Path of Exile 2's Atlas has been iterated on repeatedly through Early Access - including a substantial rework in the 0.5.0 Return of the Ancients expansion this past May - without ever feeling settled. 1.0 is GGG's chance to lock it down.
Free-to-play, and a registration campaign
The business model shift is the part with the widest reach. Path of Exile 2's Early Access has been gated behind a paid Supporter Pack. From 1.0 the game is free-to-play - monetised the way Path of Exile 1 always has been, through cosmetic microtransactions and stash tabs rather than power. Anyone who has been watching from the sidelines because of the entry fee simply stops needing one.
GGG has also opened a registration campaign at pathofexile2.com/register ahead of launch. Signing up guarantees at least one cosmetic microtransaction, with up to five unlocked as community-wide registration milestones are hit. It is a straightforward pre-launch audience-building push, and it is free to enter.
On platforms, 1.0 covers PC across Steam, the Epic Games Store and GGG's own standalone client, plus PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. There is also a 0.5.5 patch expected before the full release, bringing economy and balance changes to the current Early Access build.
The December problem
There is one obvious wrinkle. December 11 puts Path of Exile 2's full launch three weeks after Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19, and into the same month as the tail of the holiday release calendar. For most games that would be a scheduling disaster. For an ARPG with a dedicated audience that plays in league cycles and a free entry price, it matters considerably less - and December 11 is almost exactly the anniversary of the Early Access launch, which reads like a deliberate choice rather than an accident.
The bigger question is whether two Acts, a new class and a reworked endgame are enough to convert a game that has spent two years being argued about into one that settles the argument. GGG has until December 11 to make that case, and the deep-dive announcements are still to come.
