Path of Exile 2 game director says its success was a big surprise

Path of Exile 2 launched last year in December and despite being paid early access, the game saw over 1 million users. The signs of success were already there with the original game being so popular; however, the early access launch reportedly surpassed all developer expectations despite another big game launching days before.

“As we started to get closer to release and see pre-sales and stuff like that, suddenly it was like, oh crap, this is looking like it might be one of our biggest releases ever, and then it did indeed turn out to be. And that is indeed our largest release by quite a lot that we've ever done,” said the game director for Path of Exile 2, ‘Jonathan Rogers’, in an interview with Eurogamer.

Path of Exile 2 wasn’t intended to be a separate game

The original idea behind what is now Path of Exile 2 was an in-game update for the original game. There was going to be an option for players if they wanted to play the legacy campaign or continue with the new one. As things kept on piling up, GGG ultimately decided to make it a separate game.

Following a short delay in launch and a $30 early access price, the game launched to over half a million concurrent players. Since it also launched on consoles, the numbers were reported to be over 900,000, making Path of Exile 2 the biggest game release by GGG.

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Path of Exile 2 will be free on full launch

Similar to the first game, Path of Exile 2 will also become free-to-play on full launch. During the interview, Rogers also said that they are 65% sure the game will see a full release in 2025 and that they expect even more people to play the game, taking the concurrent player count to over a million.

Speaking on player count, Rogers is also not too worried about retaining the players, as ARPGs usually see a dip a few weeks after a new season/league is introduced. However, players do come back to check out new things and stick around for a bit. The upcoming 0.2 update is also expected to see the player count rise again with the introduction of a new ascendency class and items to use.