Playing as one of six character classes, players find themselves banished for their past misdeeds to the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast. There, they will encounter hundreds of species of opponents laden with loot and mysterious artifacts as they explore the abandoned continent.

Players will be able to purchase in-game perks, such as extra victory animations, clothing and special effects. To protect the integrity of the game for all players, Grinding Gear Games has decided not to sell abilities or experience points – ensuring a level-playing field for everyone in game.

With an open-ended and flexible skill and item system, randomised items and random dungeons, the game promises three acts of visceral combat gameplay, with additional expansions already planned.

Path of Exile: Breach Features: 

• Enter the Breach: Tears in the fabric of reality have formed throughout Wraeclast. Engage them to expose an alternate realm and reveal those who dwell there. Slay monsters inside the Breach to keep it open long enough to reap your bounty.
• Challenge the Breachlords: Deep in the Breach, you may draw the ire of horrific new bosses: Breachlords. The more damage you inflict on them, the more treasure they'll part with during their escape.
• Conquer a Breachlord's Domain: Among the riches found in the Breach, you may also encounter Splinters. Combine 100 Splinters of the same type together to create a Breachstone. When placed in the Map Device, a Breachstone allows travel into a Breachlord's Domain, the one place where they are truly vulnerable.
• Treasures of the Breach: Monsters from the Breach drop new unique items that are specific to their Domain. When slain in their Domain, Breachlords can drop Blessings that allow these new uniques to be upgraded.
• Performance Improvements: Content Update 2.5.0 includes the release of our new 64-bit Path of Exile client that uses DirectX 11. It's a lot faster than the previous version and includes technical improvements such as new fog and cloth physics systems.
• Breach Supporter Packs: To celebrate the Breach league, we're launching two new Supporter Packs. These exist alongside our current Atlas of Worlds Supporter Packs and feature points, forum titles, portrait frames, a weapon effect, a portal effect and an entirely new type of microtransaction: Cloaks.
• And Much, Much More! Alongside the Breach league and the new renderer, this update also includes many other changes such as piles of new Unique items, a new Channeling Support Gem, Unique Golem Jewels, a revamped Forsaken Master leveling experience (with many usability improvements) and graphical improvements to early Act One areas.

Path of Exile: Breach, like every release of PoE, is completely free-to-play and will be available at noon pacific time on Friday, December 2nd, 2016.