Grinding Gear Games was previously planning to conduct the early beta testing for Path of Exile 2 somewhere at the end of the year. Unfortunately, the ongoing development has hit a wall of sorts and the resulting delay could possibly push the release window into the next year.

Speaking with PCGamesN in a recent interview, Grinding Gear Games’ co-founder Chris Wilson noted that Path of Exile 2 will not be rushed out in any half-baked form. The game needs to be “ready enough for community feedback” and rushing will not benefit anyone. Hence, the developer will now be revising the original release window to estimate when early beta testing can start at the soonest for Path of Exile 2 after accounting for the development delays.

As for what has disturbed the ongoing development of Path of Exile 2? Wilson revealed that it has to do with the coronavirus outbreak. Grinding Gear Games outsources work to developers sitting in Asia. Due to the epidemic, the developers abroad were told to not go back to work for safety reasons. This forced Grinding Gear Games to pull staffers off Path of Exile 2 for the upcoming Delirium expansion pack.

We [Grinding Gear Games] outsource around 30 full-time developers’ worth of art creation to various outsourcing agencies in China (as it lets us dynamically expand and contract our art flow as our needs wax and wane). After Chinese New Year, the artists were told not to go back to the office for safety reasons around the Novel Coronavirus.

This entire reshuffling of resources caused “several weeks of delay” and may possible more in the months to come, based on the global status of the coronavirus outbreak. While Grinding Gear Games managed to make sure that the Delirium expansion was completed on time, the developer must now catch up to its Path of Exile 2 schedule. However, there has been no suggestion of any additional crunch. Wilson specifically noted that Path of Exile 2 has a “release when it’s ready” policy.

Hence, Path of Exile 2 is still a long way off. The sequel, announced last year as a gigantic update, will be free to play. Until the early beta testing goes live, the original will continue to be supported and Grinding Gear Games will be regularly informing the community about how the sequel is shaping up.

Just to clarify, any content and patches released between now and when the sequel launches will be available for all since they are essentially the same game. In addition, players need not worry about their accounts. All cosmetics (and progression) will carry forward as well. Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 are within a single ecosystem, an ecosystem that’s being impressively evolved.



Posted: Feb 28, 2020 7:54 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://segmentnext.com/2020/02/26/path-of-exile-2-beta-2021/