Overview
- The Return of the Ancients update, which went live on Friday, May 29, and a free-to-play weekend pushed Path of Exile 2 to about 421,596 concurrent players on Steam, the highest peak since early access.
- Patch 0.5 is a large endgame overhaul that adds six new endgame storylines, new Ascendancy classes, pinnacle bosses, expanded crafting systems, and a new build planner to guide player progression.
- Players reported a wide range of technical problems after launch, including crashes, quest blockers in the Rite of the Nameless and Jado’s quest, a bug that can make monsters in the Vaal Ruins effectively immortal, and missing rewards from some encounters.
- Grinding Gear Games has issued multiple hotfixes and a developer blog listing prioritized fixes for progression and client issues, and the studio says it will keep working through reports as they arrive.
- Community response is mixed: Steam reviews remain Mostly Positive despite creators and Reddit threads calling this release particularly buggy, and the studio now faces the challenge of converting the weekend spike into sustained engagement and deciding whether the 1.0 timetable needs adjustment.