How Path of Exile Keeps Players Coming Back | Path of Exile 2 & Grinding Gear Games

Summary

Jonathan Rogers, Game Director of Path of Exile 2, explains how Grinding Gear Games designs and promotes seasonal updates to keep players returning. Since 2011, Path of Exile 1 has received new content every three to four months. Rogers says the studio has refined its release process over dozens of leagues and faces the same challenge with Path of Exile 2, which launched in Early Access in late 2024.

The seven-part league formula

Rogers describes a checklist for making each season feel like a fresh experience:

• Reset the economy. Players start again with new characters and no league progress carried over, while their old characters remain available. This gives newcomers a fairer starting point and lets developers make substantial balance and reward changes without disrupting existing characters. Rogers also notes that players can feel frustrated when balance changes undermine skills and habits they have learned.
• Introduce a new mechanic early and often. New gameplay should appear within about five minutes and recur throughout the campaign—not arrive only after hours of play or appear just once. It should make familiar areas feel different through new encounters, enemies, modifiers, or rewards.
• Give the update a voiced character and story. Narrative and presentation shape how players perceive a mechanic, even if its basic activity resembles something from an earlier league. Rogers says voice acting helps make the experience feel more distinctive and polished.
• Create a new reward system. Rewards give activities purpose, but repeatedly increasing their quantity can inflate player expectations. Rogers recommends distinct rewards—often involving crafting—instead of simply copying rewards from past leagues. This can also help preserve the value of older content.
• Enable new builds. New skills, balance changes, unique items, or crafting options give players a reason to experiment instead of repeating familiar strategies.
• Add a new endgame progression path. Players need a fresh long-term goal, not just a repeat of the previous season’s progression.
• Include a new pinnacle boss. A demanding final challenge gives players a clear endpoint and a sense that they have completed the league.

Rogers emphasizes that these priorities can matter more for bringing back lapsed players than adding a large amount of campaign content. A new act may be valuable to people already playing, but a new mechanic encountered early can make a returning player want to continue.

Why Grinding Gear Games made Path of Exile 2

The project began as an ambitious modernization of Path of Exile 1, rather than a conventional replacement. The studio wanted a more modern opening and campaign while retaining the existing endgame, with both campaigns eventually leading into shared endgame content. The original plan included around 100 new zones and 100 bosses.

Improving the game also meant reworking old character rigs, animations, armor, and microtransactions. As development continued, the team made more significant changes to combat. Rogers wanted to move away from relying mainly on one repeatedly used skill and encourage combinations of abilities. Changes included slower, more readable combat, a repeatable dodge, WASD movement, and the ability to move while using certain skills. The scale of these changes raised concerns that the sequel might alter Path of Exile 1 too much and divide its player base.

The studio ultimately treated the games as separate seasonal experiences. Rogers argues that Path of Exile is less focused on daily engagement than on players enjoying a season, leaving satisfied, and returning for the next one. A clear seasonal endpoint helps players stop before they become burned out.

Promoting each release

Rogers says marketing should be closely tied to game design: writing the announcement can reveal whether a feature is genuinely compelling. If a feature is hard to present engagingly, the team may need to rethink or cut it. Preparing a livestream also creates a production deadline, helping the team finish and polish content in time.

The release-promotion sequence he describes includes:

• About three weeks before release: Publish a teaser announcing the upcoming presentation. It should offer a memorable image, voiced material, the release name, and a date.
• Between the teaser and presentation: Share a quality-of-life video to give existing players something useful to anticipate without distracting from the main reveal.
• A few days before the presentation: Hold an online press tour. Rogers says this lets the team test how the announcement lands and make last-minute adjustments. He recommends not giving game-specific influencers early access, so their first reactions to the reveal—and their first time playing—can help build excitement.
• During the livestream: Open with the trailer and clearly state what the update includes. Get to gameplay quickly, lead with the strongest material, and explain the player’s experience from the beginning. Rogers also views the stream as a chance to teach viewers the new mechanics. Most details can be shown in advance, he says, but the pinnacle boss should remain a secret.
• After the presentation: Hold a live Q&A with the game directors. Rogers recommends direct, honest answers rather than vague promises. The team also watches audience reactions during the broadcast so it can address confusion or concerns promptly. Follow-up videos can help sustain interest.

People and sources mentioned

• Jonathan Rogers — Speaker and Path of Exile 2 Game Director.
• Chris Wilson — Grinding Gear Games co-founder, whose earlier talk on the topic Rogers references.
• Mark — Rogers’s co-game director and collaborator on livestream scripts.
• ZiggyD — Q&A host.
• Steve Jobs — Referenced as an example of presentation style.
• Grinding Gear Games, Path of Exile 1, and Path of Exile 2 are central to the talk.
• Comparisons and references include Titan Quest 2, Payday 2 and Payday 3, MapleStory 1 and MapleStory 2, Blizzard, Digital Extremes, and E3.