After the tremendous Return of the Ancients update to Path of Exile 2, it wouldn't take much to convince me to play more of it. The action RPG is the best it's ever been and finally feels ready to come out later this year. So when developer Grinding Gear Games says it's dropping a new mini-league next week to fill some time before release, you can bet I'll be there.

On September 4, the first PoE 2 event league, Forbidden Rites, will begin. It's not like the other major updates we've seen with tons of balance changes and a whole new league mechanic. Instead, developer Grinding Gear Games is keeping this one pretty simple with a small twist to the campaign and a big rework to one of the most divisive endgame activities.

Ritual altars will show up during the campaign that spawn waves of monsters and reward you with loot. Some of them will spawn bosses on top of other bosses and will let you pocket a powerful unique item if you can survive the gauntlet. This is actually something that could already happen in the endgame version of the mechanic, so I can vouch for how fun it is to have bosses like the gorilla wielding a stone pillar appear out of thin air to crush you.

I'm particularly thrilled with what GGG has done to the Trial of Chaos, the only thing in PoE 2 I actively avoided interacting with. Someone once described the Trial of Chaos as a mode where all you do is choose how you want to get kicked in the stomach.

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