Set years after the original Path of Exile, you will return to the dark world of Wraeclast and seek to end the corruption that is spreading. Path Of Exile 2 is a free-to-play online multiplayer game with co-op for up to six players.

Since the death of Kitava, society has been slowly rebuilding, but Corruption has once again started to spread throughout Wraeclast. The people whisper of a ghastly living Seed that drives those around it to madness...

Path Of Exile 2 features a brand new campaign with six acts, 100 distinct environments, 600 monsters and 100 bosses.

Path Of Exile 2 features twelve character classes, two for every combination of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. While each of the class variants focuses on a different playstyle, they're just a starting point. You can combine skills from many classes together to create your ideal character build. Each of the twelve character classes has its own three Ascendancy specializations, resulting in a total of 36 Ascendancy Classes to pick between.

Developer Grinding Gear Games announced that, in addition to the traditional click-to-move, Path of Exile 2 will also supports WASD movement, which lets you aim and attack in a different direction than the one you are moving in.

You can switch between click-to-move and WASD at any time.

Path of Exile 2: Mercenary Reveal

The Mercenary is a crossbow-wielding character class in Path of Exile 2. This class has shooter-like gameplay, swapping crossbows and ammo types on the fly to inflict deadly combo attacks on his enemies.

It has been a few months since we introduced you to the Druid in Path of Exile 2. One of the things that we're really focusing on now is how varied each class feels to play.

• The Monk darts around quickly from enemy to enemy, building and unleashing combos. If he doesn't stay in combat, he loses momentum and has to build it up again.
• The Warrior, on the other hand, is like a slow but unstoppable freight train. A Warrior commits to big attacks and relies on stunning his enemies to stay safe in the thick of combat. When an opening presents itself, a Warrior can use even larger attacks to demolish his enemies.
• The Huntress seamlessly moves from melee to ranged combat and back. The true damage potential of the Huntress is only unlocked when you learn to combine ranged and melee abilities together.
• And then there are spellcasters. The Sorceress is a pure caster who much prefers to stay at range and drop powerful spells on her foes. If she finds herself surrounded by enemies, she would rather use an ability to escape than to take them on directly.
• The Druid is also a spellcaster, but unlike the Sorceress, he uses his spells as a means to support his melee abilities. And by melee abilities, we mean he can turn into a giant animal and rip his enemies to pieces.

Each of these classes feels extremely different to play, but we want to go even further. It's time to check out the Mercenary.

When thinking about each new class, we really try to think about what can make combat feel different from all the others. For the Mercenary, that difference is the crossbow. A crossbow is fundamentally different than a regular bow because it fires instantly instead of needing to be drawn back. This means that you need immediate feedback. Clicking the fire button should make the character shoot instantly, just like in a shooter. As soon as we experienced that, we realised that there are a lot of design lessons to learn from shooters, and so we fully embraced them.

In Path of Exile 2, we have crossbows that work like sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles.

But in order to really get shooter-like gameplay we wanted to go further. In Path of Exile 2 we now support WASD  movement. You can now walk around in any direction independent of aiming. In fact, if this is your preferred method of gameplay you can use it on any class regardless of what weapon type you are using. You can change between Click to Move or WASD at any time.

You can only hold two crossbows at a time, but Path of Exile 2 is all about interesting combinations of abilities. And this is where Ammo skills come in.

This is a Burst Shot crossbow and right now, I have Armour Piercing Ammo equipped which makes it very effective when facing a group of enemies since it pierces right through them.

But there are other ammos too. For a bigger single target, it might be a good idea to switch to Incendiary. The more projectiles hit the target, the stronger the ignite, so you will want to get up nice close and personal with this one.

If you have a bunch of targets running at you, you might want to slow them down. In this case, you could switch to Permafrost Burst Shot. Shooting a bunch of smaller enemies at range will chill them, and potentially even freeze them in place.

Once you have some frozen enemies though, you can switch back to Armour Piercing. Shooting a frozen enemy with Armour Piercing Burst Shot will explode the ice, doing a huge amount of damage to all nearby enemies.

Another feature crossbows have is attachments. This is a grenade launcher. As you can see, when I equip it, it appears on the underside of the crossbow. These attachments are just like skill gems, so you effectively get extra skill slots, and you can augment these with support gems just like regular skills.

These grenades take a while to explode, so it's a good idea to pair them with some kind of crowd control like Permafrost Burst Shot.

We have other grenades too though. This attachment is a Flash Grenade. It does barely any damage, but it does do a huge amount of stun. It can be a great opener before you run into combat.

Now here is another attachment. An Oil Grenade.

Firing one of these grenades coats the ground and nearby enemies in oil. Oil slows enemies down, so it's another useful crowd control mechanic.

Now another useful thing oil can do, is be set on fire. Any burning enemy or explosion will ignite the oil, causing extra burning damage.

One of the problems with Burst Shot crossbows is that each pellet doesn't do much damage individually. This means that if enemies have Armour then it will be very effective at preventing damage.

But thankfully you can equip an additional crossbow in your second weapon set to deal with the weaknesses of your primary weapon.

This is a Rapid Shot crossbow. Rapid Shot is great for closing on enemies because you can shoot while running. In Path of Exile 2 we now have the ability to allow you to use some skills while moving. Being able to create skills like this opens up a lot of new design space and allows us to really increase the pace of combat.

The Armour Piercing version of Rapid Shot slowly erodes a monster's armour. Once the armour is fully broken, you can easily switch back to Burst shot to deal much more damage.

Being able to run while shooting with Rapid Shot is also great for when you want to perform a fighting retreat.

Using Permafrost ammo with Rapid Shot is also useful if you need to retreat. When you shoot the ground, it creates ice crystals. If you draw monsters back over these crystals, they explode, chilling the monsters. It's great if you want to set up a safe zone before pulling the next pack.

Slowing the enemies down can come in handy if you want to use the Incendiary version of Rapid Shot. Using this skill requires you to charge up a little bit before it fires but as it continues to heat up it will do more and more damage.

It has a really large clip size, so you can just keep firing and firing with it, but the other really useful feature is that when the crossbow is heated up, it adds extra fire damage to any grenade that you launch.

Now I've been using Explosive grenades here, but it will work equally as well with Flash or Oil grenades too. If you use it with Oil grenades, then the oil will catch fire immediately.

Another crossbow type that you can find is Power Shot.

This one works just like a classic sniper rifle. Using it with Armour Piercing ammo and it will penetrate armour on targets, so it's a good idea to use it when something is really tough.

Now this skill has another interesting interaction with Armour Break. If the enemy has it's armour broken then your power shot hits a weak spot and does a huge amount of single target damage, with a bunch of extra stun for good measure.

Now the Incendiary version of Power Shot is more like a rocket launcher. It does a big explosive blast at a distance.

One of the really useful features of this version is that you can explode any grenades that happen to be on the ground.

This combo also works well with Incendiary Rapid Shot. I'm going to charge up the heat on my crossbow, shoot out a bunch of grenades, then start the fireworks with a Power Shot.

Ice version of Power Shot creates frost walls at a distance. This is great for crowd controlling monsters in tight passages.

The wall segments have other uses too. If they get destroyed by monsters, then they will explode doing a small amount of damage.

Now remember that Burst Shot combo with frozen enemies we did earlier? That works with ice walls too. Let's put Burst Shot back on.

Now I can fill up this area with ice walls, then shoot them with Armour Piercing Burst Shot for a huge amount of damage.

Alright, It’s time to face the boss for this area. Let's see how we fare against her with all the skills I've shown you so far.

And that's the Mercenary. It feels totally different than anything we’ve made before, and shows you the range of what is possible in Path of Exile 2.

We're going to be showing off a lot more about Path of Exile 2 as we approach its beta.

Path Of Exile 2 features 240 Skill Gems that grant devastating active skills and 200 Support Gems that modify their behavior. Combine these together to create your perfect build. This is the next generation of Path of Exile's famous skill system. Support Gems are now socketed directly into Skill Gems, removing many of the frustrations present in the old system while maintaining all the previous depth. It's now possible to six-link every skill your character uses.

Path Of Exile's iconic Passive Skill Tree has made a return, with 2,000 skills that allow you to completely customize your gameplay experience. It now features Dual Specialization, the ability to allocate some passive skill points to two different sets of skills. They engage whenever the appropriate weapon or skill type is used. For example, you can have some points allocated to both daggers and traps, or ice and lightning, and as you swap between attacks, the appropriate skill points will apply. This lets you specialize in multiple areas without opportunity cost.

Path Of Exile 2 features 700 equipment base types and every single one has its own unique item you can find. You can augment your arsenal with new weapons such as Spears, Crossbows and Flails, as well as supplementary items like Focuses, Traps and redesigned Sceptres.

At the conclusion of Path Of Exile 2's six-act campaign, you'll gain access to its endgame. Each of the more than 100 endgame maps has its own boss fight and modifiers that enable revamped versions of many of Path of Exile's past leagues. We'll reveal more details of the surprises that await you in Path Of Exile 2's endgame in the leadup to release.

Path of Exile 2 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.