Grinding Gear Games Commits to Ongoing Path of Exile 1 Support Despite Path of Exile 2 Surge

Grinding Gear Games has confirmed it will support Path of Exile 1 for as long as it has players, even as Path of Exile 2’s player numbers soar after the Return of the Ancients update, with concurrent users recently exceeding 400,000 on Steam alone.

Grinding Gear Games (GGG) has formally stated that Path of Exile 1 (POE 1) will not be dropped, sidelined, or replaced by Path of Exile 2 (POE 2). Despite the surge in POE 2’s popularity, driven by the major Return of the Ancients update on 29 May 2026 and the promise of a 1.0 release later this year, the studio will maintain and develop both games concurrently. As co-founder Jonathan Rogers explained, “We have no motivation to stop supporting POE 1. The launches for POE 1 are also in the hundreds of thousands of concurrent users every time. There’s absolutely no reason why we would stop developing a game that has launches that most game companies would be incredibly satisfied with, if their game were doing numbers like that. So yeah, we’ll just continue to support it forever, unless the players go away. As long as there are players, there’s no reason to not do that.”

Return of the Ancients Drives Historic Player Numbers

POE 2’s Return of the Ancients update, which launched on 29 May 2026, brought the highest concurrent player counts since the early access debut of the sequel. Steam alone saw concurrent player peaks surpassing 400,000 in the days following release, a figure bolstered by a free weekend event and in-game discount. The update introduced a complete overhaul of the endgame, including expanded content and more structured progression through the Atlas map, aided by major new questlines designed to guide players beyond the campaign.

Feature summary of Return of the Ancients update:

• Major expansion and rework of endgame Atlas map
• New questlines providing clear direction post-campaign
• Steam Deck Verification: all technical requirements met, pending Valve’s certificate
• Free weekend and in-game discount drove additional player engagement

Path of Exile 1 and 2: Separate Teams and Shared Cosmetics

Unlike Blizzard’s replacement of Overwatch 1 with Overwatch 2, GGG’s stated policy has always been to keep both POE 1 and POE 2 live, with players able to access both games independently. Both games share a single micro-transactions shop, and all purchased cosmetics and effects are available across the two titles. As Rogers said, “Path of Exile 1 and 2 both use the same micro-transactions shop, and cosmetics carry over into both games, which is a laudable implementation.”

Rogers acknowledged initial growing pains: “In the early days of POE 2, Path of Exile 1 was affected negatively. We had a long period there where we weren’t doing POE 1 launches and it took a while to get our company into a state where we had the ability to do both games at the same time. But now we do have separate teams. There’s separate people managing them and they’ve got their own resources and things are fine there. Now it’s actually not a problem to maintain POE 1 and 2 at the same time. POE 1’s launches are now on time, they’re happening regularly – it’s not a problem.”

The simultaneous management of two major live service action RPGs, each with hundreds of thousands of active players, demanded organisational changes. The primary issues arose during the development of POE 2’s early access and the build-up to its full (1.0) release, notably the completion of Acts 5 and 6. GGG prioritised POE 2 over POE 1 for a period, impacting the cadence of POE 1’s content, but this has since been resolved with the formation of distinct teams for each project.

Rogers further explained, “The issues he’s referring to stemmed from developing Path of Exile 2 early access updates while also building the final game for the 1.0 release – specifically campaign Acts 5 and 6. This meant doubling up on the work to some degree, and the only way of achieving this at the time was to deprioritise Path of Exile 1.” The previous delays in POE 1’s update cycle have now been “basically sorted out”, allowing for reliable content drops to resume.

“Then it’s just a matter of doing the same formula that we’ve always done for POE 1. We know how to create a league [a kind of season] in four months. That is a thing that our company knows very well how to do. We’ve done it 40, 50 times. It’s just a matter of getting back to that rhythm again,” said Rogers. “POE 1’s already back in that rhythm and it’s not a problem any more. We were rightly criticised back when it wasn’t – it was bad. It was always our intention to not have any cross contamination there in terms of one delaying the other, but it was being affected for a while. But as I said, that’s basically sorted out now for POE 1.”

Structured Data: Timeline and Player Metrics

• Date of Return of the Ancients update: 29 May 2026
• Recent concurrent player peak (Steam): Over 400,000
• Platforms: PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X
• Shared features across POE 1 and 2: Micro-transactions shop, cosmetics carry-over
• Support Policy: “We’ll just continue to support [POE 1] forever, unless the players go away.” — Jonathan Rogers
• Development Teams: Separate dedicated teams for POE 1 and POE 2
• League content cadence: Every four months, with over 40–50 leagues released to date

Grinding Gear Games’ commitment to the Path of Exile franchise is explicit: Path of Exile 1 will continue to be supported as long as there is an active player base, with no planned end date, even during peaks of Path of Exile 2’s popularity and ongoing development.