It’s finally happening, Grinding Gear Games finally has a final release date for the PS4 version of their amazing ARPG, Path of Exile.
This new platform grants an entirely new audience to the endless end-game, wonderful crafting, rich trading systems and just general loot-stuffed goodness that is POE. The release of the port was originally delayed several times from it’s early 2019 release date, but now we know when the PS4 playerbase can take their first steps into Wraeclast.
The journey for PlayStation 4 gamers into POE begins on March 26, 2019.
For those that are brand new to Path of Exile, it’s one of the best ARPGs on the market. I’ve often heard it described as the game Diablo 3 wishes it could be. With ongoing development since 2013, developer Grinding Gear Games has crafted an amazing experience with a deep meta-game, player-controlled economy, and an infinite end-game featuring incredibly tough bosses. And of course, mountains of loot and gear.
The most recent expansion, Synthesis League, launched with the 3.6 patch, introducing a new puzzle-based gameplay loop involving hunting down lost memories.
If you want to hop into that, we’ve got a new players guide to POE for your perusal. If you need help picking a build, we’ve also got a selection of starter builds for Synthesis League to look at. Then there’s the guide for the Synthesis League gameplay mechanics. And finally, if you’re getting into the end-game, there’s also a mapping guide for Synthesis League.
I wouldn’t expect cross-platform play though. For one thing, the economies would be significantly out of sync with one another even just comparing the two versions of the PS4 and Xbox One. And with the massive gulf between average wealth on the PC version versus the PS4, this effect would only lead to brand new PS4 players lacking purchasing power compared to the prices of the PC economy. The other major issue is simpler, Sony. The Japanese company has been resistant to cross-play for quite a while. They’ve slowly started to come around, but I wouldn’t expect the idea of cross-platform play in Path of Exile to come up until at least the next expansion if not later.
Grinding Gear Games also announced the opening of sale of tickets to the first ever fan convention for the game, ExileCon, hosted by the developers themselves. Tickets are now available and cost $200-$500 with only a total of 552 tickets still available at the time of this writing.
Speaking of ExileCon, the innaugural POE fan event will feature a lot of news about the future of the ARPG, direct from GGG. There’s the reveal of details about two different expansions, the 3.9 mini-expansion that’s due in December, and the 4.0 meg-expansion due sometime in 2020. Of course there’s so much more than just news about our favorite game. The team at GGG will be giving various talks about game development and the history of the game and the company, as well as demonstrating some new content for fans. It’s all really cool.
So if all of that sounds like it might be interesting to you, look into booking your trip to New Zealand now as ExileCon takes place November 16th and 17th, with an early VIP dinner for select ticket holders on the 15th.
Source: Grinding Gear Games
