Path of Exile 2 probably won't be released until 2022

But there's a new endgame expansion coming out later this month.

It looks like Path of Exile 2 won't be launching until next year.

That's according to the head of developer Grinding Gear Chris Wilson, who – when pressed for some clarification about a release date – told PC Gamer that the studio was aiming to launch the title in 2022. Wilson said that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic had hit development at the studio, making it harder to not only hire new staff but also slowed down work on Path of Exile 2.

"I hate to blame COVID for stuff, but that is a big part of it at the moment," Wilson said.

"We have had difficulty hiring internationally because the borders to New Zealand are closed, so that has curtailed the exponential growth of our asset creation team a little bit.

"The progress of development hasn't been as fast as we wanted, and so our goal is to bash as hard as we can during 2021 on Path of Exile 2 stuff and see how much headway we make. Trying to get as much done as possible, and that'll give us a better idea of a good release date we can estimate, which should be towards the end of the year."

Path of Exile 2 was announced at Grinding Gear's ExileCon in November 2019 with the aim of having a beta for the game out by "very late 2020." The original free-to-play action RPG was released in 2013 for PC, before coming to Xbox One in 2017 and PlayStation 4 in 2019.

Fans of the original game have the upcoming Echoes of the Atlas endgame expansion to look forward to. That is launching January 15, after initially shooting for release in December last year, before it was delayed when Cyberpunk 2077 was pushed back into that month.