Path of Exile Offers Insight Into Unique Jewels And Item Creation

Grinding Gear Games always produces a suite of unique items for a Path of Exile expansion, and the most recent one, Delirium, was no exception. This time around, however, the dev team also needed to create a new type of "item," Keystone and Cluster Jewels, which had powerful effects that reshaped the passive skill tree and served as a focus for new and exciting builds.

On a dev blog posted today, GGG talked a little bit about what went into the making of some of these jewels, as well as the other more typical unique items from Delirium. The Keystone Jewels "were created from a long list of over 30 suggestions by designers, many of which weren't possible." (Talented as they are, there are some things even the developers can't do -- or so they would have us believe.) One with Nothing was a particularly unusual case, being suggested by an effects artist and requiring the invention of the "Unencumbered" state.

Among the profiled Cluster Jewels, Voices was the first one designed, which is understandable given its simplicity. Split Personality and Megalomaniac underwent significant development before reaching their final forms, with the latter initially being a "nightmare to both describe and make work."

The unique items Algor Mortis, Assailum, Perfidy, and Beacon of Madness also challenged the dev team, with each one needing a certain specific focus to have a chance of seeing play. That was something Chris Wilson described to me in our interview about the expansion -- and, given its name, I suppose we should count our blessings that his team didn't go insane trying to make everything work out.