Path of Exile 2 opens up Return of the Ancients with a free weekend and 50% off Early Access

If you have been holding off on jumping into Path of Exile 2, this is the weekend Grinding Gear Games is making it easy to take a look. The studio has confirmed a free weekend for the game’s latest expansion, Return of the Ancients, running from 29 May through 1 June PDT, with a parallel 50% off promotion on the Early Access Supporter Pack that stretches all the way to 12 June.

The Supporter Pack discount is the more interesting hook for anyone who has been on the fence. It bundles full Early Access to the game along with 150 in-game points to spend in the store, and it is available across PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store.

What is actually new in Return of the Ancients

The expansion is built around the Runes of Aldur league. Players who complete a set of eight in-league challenges earn pieces of the Knight of Aldur Armor Set, plus a totem decoration for their Hideout. Grinding Gear has stressed that these are cosmetic only and do not affect character power, which is the kind of clarification ARPG audiences tend to appreciate up front.

Underneath the new league, Return of the Ancients is doing a fair amount of structural work. The endgame has been reshaped, the crafting system has been expanded, and the Atlas Tree has been redesigned. There are two new Ascendancy classes in the mix, the Martial Artist and the Spirit Walker, alongside a new Build Planner and a long list of smaller quality-of-life additions.

The Discord side of the rollout is worth a note too. Logging in and playing for 15 minutes between 29 May at 10am PDT and 5 June at 5pm PDT unlocks a Runeseeker avatar decoration via Discord Quest, which is a small but neat way to mark the league launch.

Why it matters for the indie ARPG crowd

Path of Exile 2 sits at the more polished end of the ARPG scene, but the genre as a whole remains one of the most fertile spaces for smaller developers, and Grinding Gear’s willingness to expand systems rather than just push cosmetics is a healthy signal for everyone working in the space. A free weekend is also a useful sandbox for indie ARPG devs who want to study how the current top of the genre handles endgame loops.

Return of the Ancients is available on PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store. More details on the league are on the official announcement page.

Source: PressEngine, on behalf of Grinding Gear Games / Starfall PR.