Grinding Gear Games announced the release dates for its next major expansion, Path of Exile: Echoes of the Atlas.
The brand new expansion launches on PC on January 15. It’s coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on January 20. The expansion delivers new end-game content, a new challenge league, new skills, and a new pinnacle boss simply known as The Maven.
The Maven
Path of Exile: Echoes of the Atlas tests the mettle of players brave enough to face its many challenges. Here’s how Grinding Gear Games describes it:
The Maven is hungry to witness the player’s fight for survival against the Atlas’ most dangerous enemies. Slaying three map bosses in her presence will earn players a summons to her realm where she will request they defeat these bosses simultaneously. Then four bosses. Then five bosses, then six until players are finally able to defeat ten at the same time. Once this incredible feat of strength is shown, that’s when The Maven will challenge combatants herself.
New Content and Rewards
As players prove their worth, they’ll unlock regional passive trees. The content they encounter and rewards received are augmented while exploring various regions. New end-game rewards include three types of craftable Watchstones that allow players to upgrade their Atlas and boost rewards found from maps. The new craftable Watchstones can be traded. They also do not expire with use, and their benefits are stackable, making them superior to regular Watchstones.
Another new end-game reward, called The Maven’s Orb, is able to randomly upgrade items that have two or more influence modifiers. While one of these influence modifiers is upgraded, the others are removed. So it’s important to choose wisely. If an upgraded modifier reaches its highest tier, it’ll be upgraded to a new elevated tier. Echoes of the Atlas has a total of thirteen new unique items and a number of Divination Cards.
A new league is born
Echoes of the Atlas has a new challenge league called Ritual League that pits players against a combination of the Ritual Altar’s arcane powers and escalating waves of monsters enclosed within a Ritual Circle. The more rituals completed, the better the rewards and the more difficult the enemies.
According to Grinding Gear Games:
As players slay monsters during Rituals, they’ll earn Tribute which can be spent on a variety of items and rewards. Rituals can be enhanced end-game by obtaining tradeable Ritual vessels. Up to four vessels can be placed within a map to add their monsters to the rituals already present, which substantially increases both the difficulty and rewards for those Rituals.
