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Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie

Path of Exile

The Atlantis Mystery Box Concept Art - Atlantis

Today we'd like to share the concept art created for the combined Atlantis cosmetics from the recent Atlantis Mystery Box. If you've missed the previous two news posts with the Atlantis concept art, you can check them out here and here.

The artworks below were created by Ryan McQuarters and Seung Gue Lee.





Midnight Pact Microtransactions Now Available in Store

Microtransactions from the Midnight Pact Mystery Box are now available in the store! It's also still possible to combine some of the individual Scavenger and Overseer cosmetic effects into the Midnight Pact ones.

As a follow up, we've also released the accompanying Midnight Pact Character Effect and the Midnight Pact Stash Bundle. Please note that the Midnight Pact Stash Bundle can be equipped to your Stash and Guild Stash via the Hideout Cosmetics UI and are only available in your hideout which means that they will not be displayed in town instances.

Check out the Midnight Pact microtransactions by watching the videos below. You can also view the full range in the store by pressing M in game.

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Thanks for your support!

Save the Date for Upcoming December Events

We're ending 2021 with an action-packed series of Path of Exile events in December! We'll share the full announcement in just over a week but in the meantime we wanted to let you know what to expect.

We have six event types planned which begin in early December and run through to the first week of January. While you wait for the full announcement, we can confirm the event dates, duration and that Endless Delve is making a return! We'll also have several days of Path of Exile: Royale featuring Brutus, a version of Royale which made its debut during our recent Twitch Rivals tournament. Zizaran is also hosting another Gauntlet event which will be supported by us in the schedule and with bonus prizes.

Check out the schedule below. These events will all start at Noon Pacific Time.

  • December 3 - Endless Delve (10 Days)
  • December 8 - Royale + Brutus (1 day)
  • December 10 - Zizaran's Gauntlet (10 days)
  • December 17 - TBA: New Event Type (10 Days)
  • December 22 - Royale + Brutus (1 day)
  • December 24 - TBA: New Event Type (10 Days)
  • December 29 - Royale + Brutus (1 day)
  • December 31 - TBA: New Event Type (10 Days)

In the 10 day events, top-ranked players of each Ascendancy Class will be eligible for the coveted Demigod's Authority and participating players will be awarded with mystery boxes and eligible for randomly-drawn microtransaction prizes. We'll also be providing Twitch Drops on the first day of each 10 day event!

While we'll leave a little mystery about the TBA events for now, we can at least say that these are events we haven't run before and do not include the Turmoil, Mayhem or Flashback events from the past. We're very excited to see what you think!

Fan Art Competition Highlights

Community Showcase

The community never ceases to amaze us with its talents. From digital artwork and music to tattoos and cosplays - we love seeing that Path of Exile continues to inspire our players. For today's news post we've gathered several pieces of recent Fan Art, created outside our ongoing Fan Art Competition. Check them out below!

Chaos Orb Tattoo by AlexZohanLevin





Path of Exile Tattoo by AnzuJaam1





Scourge League Wallpaper by QueenNie





Scourge Pet Model by etherealSTEVE





Oshabi Cosplay by Nox_Eterna





Path of Exile Builds by Amysmadeofwax





Development Stories - Creating Scourge Lore

In Path of Exile: Scourge, we introduced The Last to Die, a new NPC from an alternate Wraeclast swarmed by ravenous demons. For this news post, our Narrative Designer, Matt, has taken a moment to reflect on writing for Scourge League. Here are his thoughts:

Narrative work on Scourge League took a very different approach for a number of reasons. For one, essentially the entire league was created during lockdown here in New Zealand, so getting voice acting recorded was an interesting odyssey over multiple online recording sessions. In a sense, we got lucky that our plan for The Last to Die NPC was for her to have a limited number of lines and essentially retire soon after handing off the Blood Crucible. If she had been anything akin to the complexity of Expedition league three months before, it would have no doubt been impossible to finish her scripts. As it turned out, the voice actress for The Last to Die, Genevieve Kent, nailed the tone we were looking for despite working at a distance - and, in one case, during a massive windstorm that forced us to record lines multiple times and then edit around the wind!

The second reason things were different this time around was a new approach we decided to try for this content. The vast majority of lore for this league is inferred or implied instead of directly stated. Where Expedition had a detailed historical saga to follow, Scourge league was made in conjunction with numerous details mentioned in the core game and previous leagues. There's enough out there already that, before Scourge league even released, observant players were giving TED talks on the upcoming lore. I can't confirm or deny if any particular theory was right, but there's more fun to be had with the Scourge than might be immediately apparent.

With The Last to Die too traumatized and depressed to wax on at length about what she's seen, we have to guess with what little we know. She does tell the Exile that the Blood Crucible functions through a pact with Chaos, which is the second time we've encountered someone working with them. For those who remember Ultimatum League, the Trialmaster described Chaos as an entity who is aware of different possibilities at the same time. The Last to Die outright states that she has been to 'other Wraeclasts,' which we can reasonably infer are other possible versions of the continent. Her pact with Chaos must allow her to Shift between them, and, indeed, that is exactly what the Exile temporarily does when the Blood Crucible is activated.

If the Wraeclast we know is perhaps one of the better ones thanks to the Exile's path of destruction, then one might imagine there are versions of the world out there where events instead went very, very wrong. What exactly went wrong? What are these invaders? All we know for sure at this point is that the apocalypse is out there. We are a single beleaguered jewel floating on a sea of madness, and it's only a matter of time until doom comes knocking on our door.

The Atlantis Mystery Box Concept Art - Siren

As a follow up to the Deepwater Concept Art we published last week, today we'd like to share pieces of the Siren concept art. Check them out if you enjoy seeing our artists' work.

The following artworks were created by Seung Gue Lee, Ryan McQuarters and Timothy Albano.






















Subsurface Refraction Technology in Path of Exile

For today's news post, our Tech Art Lead Saveun has written about using the Subsurface Refraction technology in Path of Exile. Check out the examples and find out more here.

3.16.1 Patch Notes Preview

By the end of this week (or early next week) we're planning to deploy Patch 3.16.1 on PC which contains several bug fixes. To give you an idea what to expect from this patch, we've prepared a preview of its patch notes. Check them out below!

Please note that these are still subject to change prior to the patch's deployment.

Improvements

  • The Maximum Life of Non-Reaper Minions displayed in Skill tooltips is now affected by the less Maximum Life modifier from a Summoned Reaper. This is not a functional change.
  • Added a 10 second Grace Period when visiting the Mine Encampment from within the Azurite Mine.
  • Added 3D art for Atziri's Acuity.

Bug Fixes

  • Characters that were previously able to equip a Wand and Melee Weapon at the same time have had their Wand disabled.
  • Fixed a bug where Delirium encounters in Scourged Maps with the "Rare Scourged Monsters drop 1 additional stack of Simulacrum Splinters" modifier would cause splinters to drop at the end of the Delirium encounter, rather than on killing the Rare Scourged Monster.
  • Fixed a bug where the Laboratory Map boss could become inaccessible if the final lever was used during a Scourge encounter.
  • Fixed a bug where Elemental Overload was not working with Totems, Traps, Mines, or the secondary projectiles of some skills such as Cremation or Molten Strike.
  • Fixed a visual bug where "20% chance to Impale on Hit" granted by the Physical Mastery was not displayed in the Character Panel.
  • Fixed a bug where, after dying, the Survival Secrets Unique and the Profane Chemistry Notable Passive were not causing Flasks to gain Charges.
  • Fixed a bug where, after dying, Necromantic Aegis was not applying bonuses from an Equipped Shield to your Minions instead of you.
  • Fixed a bug where the "Link Skills can target Damageable Minions" Minion Defence Mastery allowed Link Skills to target Totems.
  • Fixed a bug where Belts with some Energy Shield and Armour modifiers could not be reforged with random modifiers, including a Defence modifier, through Harvest crafting.
  • Fixed a bug where Temporal Rift would have to be reactivated after logging out.
  • Fixed a bug where some Veiled modifiers on the Cane of Kulemak Unique were not having their magnitudes increased.
  • Fixed a bug where some modifiers were missing the Attribute tag.
  • Fixed a bug where the chance to Suppress Spell Damage per Frenzy Charge modifier on Legacy Darkray Vectors was not functioning correctly.
  • Fixed a bug where Brands could be hidden under the floor in some areas.
  • Fixed a bug where the Viscera Cauldron quest item description was incorrect.
  • Fixed a bug where The Lord's Labyrinth quest implied you were still required to complete multiple Trials of Ascendancy in Maps before being able to access the Eternal Labyrinth.
  • Fixed a bug where some Synthesis hideout decorations were not being exported to hideout template files.
  • Fixed a bug where some effects on the Oblivion Toxic Rain Effect Microtransaction were ending prematurely.
  • Fixed 3 instance crashes.

Scourge Fan Art Competition

It's time for our players to prove themselves not only in slaying hordes of the Scourge creatures, but also in creating pieces of fan art inspired by the content introduced in this expansion. We're launching a Scourge Fan Art Competition which focuses on any content from our current expansion, including The Last to Die, new Skill Gems, Uber Endgame content, Expedition and of course, the Scourge demons.

Prizes


Top Three Winners

4th and 5th Place

  • Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)
  • Signed Path of Exile Art Book
  • Foam Exalted Orb
  • Your choice of Weapon Effect from the list below
  • Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below
  • Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

6th-10th Place

  • Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)
  • Foam Exalted Orb
  • Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below
  • Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

11th -20th Place

  • Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

Runners-Up

  • Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below


The number of runners-up prizes awarded will depend on how many entries to the competition there are.

*Please note that T-shirt style is subject to size availability and may be substituted for a T-shirt in another style. In this scenario, we will work with you to meet your preferences.

Microtransaction Prize Pool


List of Weapon Effects

List of Helmet Atatchments

List of Armour Sets

How to Enter


Create still art that is inspired by anything introduced in the Scourge expansion. This excludes video submissions but does include any painting, drawing or model creation. Then just submit your work in this thread.

Multiple submissions are welcome and encouraged. Please note that the submission needs to be your own work and needs to have been created after the launch of the competition.

Competition times


The competition starts at the time of this post and will end on Monday the 6th of December at 5pm (PST). We'll announce the winners sometime in the days following.

Best of luck, everyone! We can't wait to see what you create.