Players Return to Path of Exile 2 - "Forbidden Rites" League Begins with New Challenges and Gameplay Improvements

Now players can safely go to sleep and complete the "Trials of Chaos" later.

In early September, Grinding Gear Games announced the launch of the new "Forbidden Rites" league in Path of Exile 2 and invited fans to start playing in a fresh economy.

Players responded to the call: the game's online presence on Steam significantly increased after the league started. Recently, it had been hovering around 12-20 thousand, but after the launch of the "Forbidden Rites" league, Path of Exile 2's online count surpassed 147 thousand users, staying within 130-138 thousand this weekend.

In Path of Exile 2 version 0.5.5, several league options are available — Standard, Hardcore, and their Solo variations. The mechanics and items are the same across all league versions. The developers noted that private leagues can be created based on these leagues.

The developers explained that a "very annoying" feature of the Trial of Chaos was that once started, it had to be completed entirely before it was possible to leave. Because of this feature, if players needed to, for example, trade or stop playing for the night, they couldn't. Now everything has changed: players can leave the Trial of Chaos at any time and continue it later from the same room.

Some other changes and new features:

• Party members can now receive Ritual Tribute from completing rituals. They will have their own limited assortment of rewards to spend tribute on, or tribute can be offered to the Master in the Mists. Rewards offered to party members cannot be reset.
• Rewards for completing the Trial of Chaos now consist only of currency and Soul Cores. Corrupted items can no longer be received as rewards.
• Inscribed Ultimatum of magic rarity can no longer drop from the Trial Master.
• (Trial of Chaos) Doors between each encounter that open when a player approaches now start opening earlier and allow passage through them sooner during the opening process. These changes should make transitions between rooms much smoother, especially when playing characters with high movement speed.
• Large Abyss Chasms can now appear throughout the Atlas. Maps found in these chasms are guaranteed to contain Abysses.
• Changes have been made to the Azmeri spirit release mechanic. Now, when releasing Azmeri spirits, there is only a chance for a new spirit to appear, depending on the threat level of the possessed monster.

The full list of changes for the "Forbidden Rites" league in Path of Exile 2 is available at the following link.