Path of Exile 2 likely won’t leave early access in March 2026, director says
Path of Exile 2’s full launch is now unlikely to hit its planned March 2026 window, as director Jonathan Rogers says the team still needs significant time to finish the campaign, balance changes, and endgame systems.
Path of Exile 2’s long-awaited 1.0 launch likely won’t happen by March 2026.
The RPG released in early access in December 2024, and while the title was initially targeting a full launch in three months’ time, game director Jonathan Rogers has now confirmed Path of Exile 2 is no longer definitely coming by March 2026.
Rogers told Eurogamer he was “fairly confident” the full release will still land in 2026 - but cautioned that March is looking unlikely and stressed he doesn’t want to “promise anything” as development continues to evolve.
He added: “I certainly wouldn’t want to be any later than the end of next year … but I certainly wouldn’t want to slip into 2027.”
The hesitation stems from three major hurdles still ahead: completing the campaign, implementing significant balance passes, and finalising endgame systems.
So far, four of the game’s six campaign acts are currently live in early access, with the fourth arriving in August 2025.
Even assuming Acts 5 and 6 ship in successive quarterly updates, each will still require testing, polish, and balance work, making an autumn 2026 launch feel far more realistic than early spring.
And that’s before factoring in any tuning changes, which have already slowed development in the past; the hunter class update earlier this year forced Grinding Gear Games to pause other work to address balance and flow issues.
Developer Grinding Gear Games is now preparing to roll out update 0.5.0 on December 12, bringing the new druid class, a reworked performance pipeline (with the biggest gains on consoles), and a fresh seasonal league, The Fate of the Vaal, which features a modular, player-assembled dungeon inspired partly by Loop Hero.
