‘Diablo’s Biggest Rival Is Free To Play This Weekend With A Huge New Update

On the heels of the announcement that Path of Exile 2 won’t be leaving early access this year, potential players who’ve been waiting to try the action RPG out have something to look forward to this weekend. Path of Exile 2 is free to play for the first time this whole weekend, letting anyone who’s interested check out the game in its current state, just as a large new patch hits the game.

From August 29 to September 1, Path of Exile 2 will be free to play on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The free weekend lets anyone who participates experience the full game as it stands so far, with no limits on classes or content. Any progress you make during the free weekend, or anything you purchase from the in-game shop, will remain in your account if you choose to return later.

When it launches in full, Path of Exile 2 will be a free-to–play title, just like the original game. However, lots of players are currently paying for the ability to play while it’s in early access. That means many people who might be interested in checking the game out are likely waiting for the full release to save some money, indicating there’s a large potential pool of players primed for the free weekend to jump in.

As with any game still in development, Path of Exile 2 has had plenty of ups and downs already. While reviews on Steam are Mostly Positive, it’s had a few controversial updates along the way, as well as recurring server issues that developer Grinding Gear Games blames on distributed denial of service attacks maliciously made against its servers. The free weekend coincides with one of the game’s largest updates yet, dubbed The Third Edict.

The biggest part of The Third Edict is the addition of the fourth act in the game’s story. This new act adds a ship for players to use to explore a series of tropical islands in any order they choose, making this part of the story less linear than anything that comes before. Following act four, Path of Exile 2 is getting a series of short story chapters called interludes, which lead into the endgame. These interludes are only in the game temporarily, until Act Five is added in a future update.

But if you’re just joining Path of Exile 2 for the free weekend, it’s likely you won’t be seeing most of those late-game additions. One of the biggest changes that will be present from the beginning of the game is the new ability to sprint. That might not seem like a big deal, but since its early access launch, players have complained that it often feels slow to explore and work their way through the campaign, so the ability to run while out of combat should speed things up. It also gives players a way to retreat from fights more reliably, which could be especially helpful while you’re still learning how the game works.

A lot of changes are coming to individual skills throughout the game, but one of the most significant updates that will affect players across the board comes to support gems. Support gems are modifiers that can be placed on any skill, making them more powerful and often changing how they work entirely. Previously, only one of each support gem could be used on your character, which director Jonathan Rogers says was meant to encourage players to diversify their builds. However, it actually led to less variety, since many players simply chose to focus on whichever skill was equipped with their favorite support gem, at the expense of other skills. Starting with the new update, players can use as many copies of each support gem as they want, which should ideally increase the variety of builds dramatically.

At one time, Grinding Gear Games said that Path of Exile 2 could launch in 2025, but it now says that’s unlikely. That makes the chance to check it out for free even more enticing, as it could be a long time before the opportunity comes again. Path of Exile is one of the most interesting ARPGs out now, and this weekend will give potential players of the sequel the chance to see how it stacks up.

Path of Exile 2 is available in early access on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.