Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile has had five expansions since its initial release in 2013, and each one added more content to the base game. Today, the studio announced yet another expansion called "The Fall of Oriath," and it adds multiple acts and new mechanics.

The Fall of Oriath is due out for realsies in July but, because it’s such a chunky beast of a thing and does some rebalancing, there’s going to be a beta phase where the team works out if they’ve hit the mark or if something has gone dreadfully wrong. The beta is currently set to start on 7 June with potential wiggle room a few days either side, so roughly a week after the Legacy challenge league finishes on 29 May. I think the challenge leagues are the things which swap in and out to make changes to the game economy and offer up new experiences.

There are four major gods and seven minor gods that you can choose from, and you can have one power from each pool activated at one time. These can also be changed for free in a town. Each power gives you something different. For example, the Soul of Lunaris is a major *** power that increases your physical damage reduction and movement speed for each enemy up to a maximum limit. Best and Cheapest POE Currency Trading For Sale - 5mmo.com.

Grinding Gear Games is calling Acts 6-10 "Part 2," promising they'll feel plenty different from your first time through. Some areas will be more heavily changed than others. Rogers ran through a swampy morass from an early act, explaining to me how the land was corrupted by a boss, then loaded up what that same area looked like in Part 2. With the boss dead it had reverted to a verdant field, with new not-so-zombieish enemies to fight through.

We saw some of that during our hands-on time with Fall of Oriath in February. The Fetid Pool of Act 1 in the original game has become a lush forest in Act 6 thanks to the demise of the boss that was poisoning it, for instance, while a previously locked door inside a prison is now passable. Battling gods for their powers sounds intense, and of course the opportunity to get some payback for your exile from Oriath, the incident that kicked off this whole grand adventure, has some appeal too.

If you’re new to the game, getting settled can take a little while. On its surface, it’s a straight-up Diablo clone, with the same presentation, environments, and overall flow that creates an immediate sense of familiarity. While it certainly shares foundational elements from Blizzard’s series, Grinding Gear Games veered into a different direction. Or, more accurately, a whole lot of different directions.