Game Pulse

Path of Exile 2

Path of Exile 2 1.0: the release and the first week

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  • Race to level 100
  • 1.0 on 11 December 2026
  • Eight classes, 23 ascendancies

Path of Exile 2 leaves early access and goes free to play on 11 December 2026 (PST). This guide gathers what Grinding Gear Games has published about version 1.0 by 7 November 2026, what the current ladders show about the game as it stands, and the questions its announcements leave open. Every fact names its source; where the source is this site’s own reading of the official ladder, it says so.

The facts

  • Date: “Path of Exile 2 fully releases on December 11!” (Grinding Gear Games, pathofexile2.com/fullrelease). The ExileCon 2026 announcements of 6 November give the day in Pacific time and call 1.0 free to play.
  • Content: the complete campaign with the new Acts 5 and 6, two new classes, the Shadow and the Duelist, a new endgame storyline, massive balance changes and the Conquerors of Wraeclast challenge league (ExileCon 2026 Announcements, Grinding Gear Games’ forum, 6 November). The full release page adds two new weapon types.
  • Path of Exile 1 runs alongside: its 3.30 expansion, Covens of Umbra, runs from 13 November 2026 (PST), four weeks earlier (same announcement).

The game as it stands

The official ladder lists eight classes today, Warrior, Ranger, Huntress, Mercenary, Monk, Sorceress, Witch and Druid, with 23 ascendancies between them (the Witch has four, counting the Abyssal Lich; the Ranger and the Druid two each). The current challenge league, Forbidden Rites, started on 4 September 2026 at 20:00 UTC and runs four ladders: trade, Hardcore, Solo Self-Found and Hardcore SSF. On 7 November all of the trade ladder’s top 1,000 had reached level 100, while on Hardcore 375 of the top 1,000 were dead. Those numbers are this site’s reading of the official ladder; the stats page keeps them current.

Week one: how the race will run

  1. A new challenge league means new ladders: every character in Conquerors of Wraeclast starts at level 1, and the race to 100 restarts on all four ladders. The race board switches to the new league as soon as the official trade league list carries it and its ladder calls it current.
  2. Level 100 takes 4,250,334,444 experience, the figure every level-100 character on today’s ladder shows. XP per hour and the time to 100 on the board come from readings every 15 minutes.
  3. Hardcore deaths count: the ladder marks a dead Hardcore character, and the board shows it as dead from the next reading.
  4. The two new classes will appear on the ladder under their own names; until Grinding Gear Games names their ascendancies, a Shadow or Duelist ascendancy shows its base class here.

What Grinding Gear Games has not announced

  • The launch hour. Previous leagues started at 13:00 Pacific, which is what the countdown on the overview uses.
  • The names of the Shadow’s and the Duelist’s ascendancies, and whether they are available on day one.
  • Patch notes for 1.0: none were published by 7 November, so no balance change is described here.
  • Whether the public character window will serve Path of Exile 2. Today it answers 404 for Path of Exile 2 characters, so this site shows the ladder’s facts and links poe.ninja’s build pages for public profiles instead of gear.

Sources

Grinding Gear Games: the full release page at pathofexile2.com/fullrelease and the ExileCon 2026 Announcements thread of 6 November 2026. The official Path of Exile 2 ladder on pathofexile2.com (league records and the top 1,000 of each ladder), read by this site on 7 November 2026. The class and ascendancy names are those pathofexile2.com’s ladder page uses.