Choose Violence (Or Maybe Not) In Path Of Exile's Next Expansion, Coming On July 23

Path of Exile's next expansion will be revealed two weeks from today, on July 15 at 1 p.m. Pacific. Grinding Gear Games made the announcement today, along with a brief teaser video and a tagline "How far will violence take you?" Considering the millions of monsters that have been slain by players since PoE launched eight years ago, I'd say the answer is "pretty far."

The Twitch stream will be followed by a live Q&A from GGG's ZiggyD and Chris Wilson. The expansion itself will launch the following Friday, on July 23 on PCs and July 28 on consoles.

While there isn't much else to talk about regarding the reveal itself, the comments on the various places it's being shown off seem a little mixed. In fact, if you read the comments regarding the previous few expansions, you'd be inclined to think that players are up in arms about the state of the game and that Grinding Gear Games can't do anything right. And then there was that cursor-selling affair ...

Still, with everything going "wrong" with PoE today, its numbers are as strong as ever. There doesn't seem to be anything amiss with its player count on Steam, which show the usual post-expansion dip, and its overall rating is still 92%, with 87% recent popularity. The game is hardly failing or seeing a mass exodus.

One thing that I have noticed, however, is that there hasn't been much talk lately of breaking user records, something I used to hear from Chris Wilson during every expansion preview. That doesn't mean things are shrinking noticeably, but they don't appear to be growing either. The company might be fine to tread water for another year or so while it puts the finishing touches on Path of Exile 2, which likely can't come soon enough for some players.