It's hard to believe that we've already made it to the end of 2021! As we start to welcome in the new year, we wanted to take a moment to look back on the year that was.

In 2021:

• We launched four expansions: Echoes of the Atlas, Ultimatum, Expedition and Scourge!
  
• Despite New Zealand borders still being closed due to COVID, we expanded from 149 to 165 in-house staff members. In fact, we have so many people now that we are renovating a third floor of our office building! Photos coming in a few months when the space is ready.
  
• We've been continuing to work on Path of Exile 2 and have released another trailer and gameplay preview.
  
• We deployed more than 100 updates/patches to our realm.
  
• We posted 442 news articles - an average of 8.5 posts per week.
  
• We set a record number of players online (265,250 on our server alone - up by 11% from our previous record of 237,160).
  
• Around 5.3 million different players played Path of Exile on our international realm.
  
• 2021 had the second-highest overall playtime per year, with over 483 million hours played on our international realm
  
• We reintroduced Path of Exile: Royale.
  
• We ran two Twitch Rivals Tournaments.
  
• We hosted another Halloween meeting.
  
• We improved clicking.
  
• We celebrated the 15th anniversary of Grinding Gear Games.
  
• We introduced the best bug of all time.

Thank you so much for joining us for another year in Wraeclast. We couldn't do this without you! We have lots of exciting things planned for the year ahead, beginning with our 3.17.0 expansion, which we'll be revealing in the coming weeks. Happy New Year, Exiles!

Delirium has spread throughout every area of Wraeclast in the upcoming Delirium Everywhere event! The event starts at Noon December 31st PST and will be running for 10 days. For more information about the event or for details on prizing, check out this announcement or have a look at our event calendar.

As a reminder, the Scourge mechanic will not be enabled during this event.

Don't forget, Twitch Drops will be active during the first day of the Delirium Everywhere event. This time, you'll be able to receive the Divine Demon King Portal Effect after 2 hours of accumulated watch time on any channel streaming Path of Exile on Twitch.

If you're after some extra space for all of your items, we are running a sale on Stash Tabs all weekend! Check out the full selection by pressing "M" in game. In case you need extra points for this sale, check out the new Core Supporter Packs which were released last week.

If you haven't already, make sure you get your free holiday Mystery Box by pressing "M" in game, which will automatically put the box in your microtransaction inventory!

Have a great weekend everyone!

As we close out 2021, we wanted to give you an idea of what to expect at the beginning of 2022 with Path of Exile's next big expansion. We're currently expecting to launch the 3.17 expansion in early February. This means that the Scourge League will be extended by at least two weeks. As per usual, our livestream announcement will take place about one week prior to the expansion's launch. We'll make sure there are some juicy Twitch Drops for viewers, of course.

We will confirm the exact dates as soon as we can but we do know that there's at least a two-week delay from our usual schedule so far. We want to give our staff the freedom and flexibility to take time off over the New Zealand summer holidays and recharge for the year ahead. Once our team resumes, we'll start to nail down the exact dates and will let you know.

Some players have been asking when we expect to start early testing for the experimental mode temporarily known as "Hard Mode". We had mentioned in the past that we were going to start some testing before 3.17 launches, but as we have been prioritising 3.17's development, it's now slated for sometime after 3.17's launch.

If you're looking for something to play alongside Scourge in the meantime, the Atlas Invasion event is still running for a few more days. We also have the Delirium Everywhere Event starting this weekend! Twitch Drops will be enabled for the first day and there are many awesome prizes up for grabs. For more information about these events, check out the full event post here. Of course, there's also plenty of time left in the Scourge League to jump in and earn your challenge rewards!

If you want to look fancy over the holiday period, please check out our new Core Supporter Packs we released recently by pressing "M" in game!

Thanks so much for your support. We look forward to sharing what's next for Path of Exile early next year!

Over the Christmas weekend we started the Atlas Invasion event and we're very happy to see that our community is having so much fun in it. The Atlas Invasion ends at Noon January 3rd (PST), so you still have time to join the event before it ends. In the meantime, we've gathered some Twitch highlights, captured by our players so far.

Our community is full of so much creativity that we wanted to share some great Hideout designs that we've spotted in our Hideout Showcase forum! Check out the video below!

If you're looking for a new Hideout or want to share your creation with the community, be sure to check out the Hideout Showcase Forum!



Here is a list of hideouts featured in this video (.hideout files are available in corresponding forum threads):

• Old Camp by Arthur_von_Schreyer
• Brutal Depths by Glowy
• The Menagerie by je789520
• Oriath Heaven by RPandoxy
• Green Grass Grow by Hail_44

For today's news post we've prepared pieces of concept art of some of the microtransactions released since the launch of the Scourge expansion. If you enjoy seeing the artwork of our team, make sure you take a look!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, Exiles! As is tradition, we're offering everyone a free Atlantis Mystery Box!

To redeem a free Atlantis Mystery Box all you need to do is to open the in-game shop! The Mystery Box will be automatically added to your account, you'll find it in your Microtransaction Stash. Please note that visiting the shop on the website does not trigger the free box - it must be accessed from inside the game client.

To receive a free Atlantis Mystery Box, your account has to have been created prior to today. It's only possible to get one box per account.

The free mystery box will stop being available at 3am on January 8th (PST). Check out the contents of the Atlantis Mystery Box in the trailer below.



We hope you're having a great holiday!

In the upcoming Atlas Invasion event every area in Path of Exile will be invaded by 5 endgame map bosses! The event starts at Noon December 24th PST and will be running for 10 days. For more information about the prizing check out this announcement or have a look at our event calendar.

We've seen a few people asking whether or not Scourge is an included mechanic in the Atlas Invasion and Delirium Everywhere events. We just wanted to take a moment to clarify that it isn't enabled for those events but you can continue to play in the Scourge League which runs parallel to them.

Twitch Drops will be running for the first day of the Atlas Invasion event. This time you'll be able to receive the Malachai Portal Effect after 2 hours of accumulated watch time on any channel streaming Path of Exile on Twitch during the first day of this event.

If you'd like your Exile to face the horrors of the Atlas in a fancy outfit, this weekend we're hosting a sale on a huge assortment of popular Path of Exile microtransactions, including Celestial, Twilight, Glimmerwood, Angels and Demons and other cosmetic effects. In case you need extra points for this sale, check out the new Core Supporter Packs which were released earlier this week.

Have a great weekend everyone! Come back tomorrow to unwrap your holiday Mystery Box!

We're continuing our latest community designed microtransaction series today by opening up a poll for you to pick which Epic and Dark Wing design you'd like to see. The options available in this poll are based on your suggestions from our most recent post in the series.

This poll will be open for one week. After this, we'll get you to decide between the top two ideas. Finally, we refine the top choice for the last few stages of this process. We can't wait to see what you decide!

To join the poll, head over to the news post on our forum by clicking here.

The new Core Supporter Packs are now available! Press M in game to purchase yours. These five Supporter Packs contain a lot of exclusive cosmetic microtransactions as well as tons of points to spend. In addition, the higher-tier ones include physical items, such as a choice of t-shirts, hoodies and a pack of signed Path of Exile-themed Tarot cards!

• 600 Points
• Armour Pack
• Wings
• Apparition Portal Effect
• Weapon Effect
• Supporter Forum Title
• Portrait Frame
• Extended Digital Soundtrack

• 1000 Points
• Two Armour Packs
• Two Pairs of Wings
• Two Apparition Portal Effects
• Two Weapon Effects
• Two Supporter Forum Titles
• Two Portrait Frames
• Extended Digital Soundtrack

• 1600 Points
• Three Armour Packs
• Three Pairs of Wings
• Three Apparition Portal Effects
• Three Weapon Effects
• Weapon Skin
• Alternate Gloves
• Helmet Attachment
• Three Supporter Forum Titles
• Three Portrait Frames
• Extended Digital Soundtrack
• (Optional) Zana, Path of Exile Logo or Exalted Orb T-Shirt

• 2400 Points
• Four Armour Packs
• Four Pairs of Wings
• Four Apparition Portal Effects
• Four Weapon Effects
• Two Weapon Skins
• Alternate Gloves
• Helmet Attachment
• Four Supporter Forum Titles
• Four Portrait Frames
• Extended Digital Soundtrack
• (Optional) Zana, Path of Exile Logo or Exalted Orb T-Shirt
• (Optional) Zana, Path of Exile Logo or Exalted Orb Hoodie

• 4800 Points
• Five Armour Packs
• Five Pairs of Wings
• Five Apparition Portal Effects
• Five Weapon Effects
• Three Weapon Skins
• Alternate Gloves
• Two Helmet Attachments
• Five Supporter Forum Titles
• Five Portrait Frames
• Extended Digital Soundtrack
• (Optional) Zana, Path of Exile Logo or Exalted Orb T-Shirt
• (Optional) Zana, Path of Exile Logo or Exalted Orb Hoodie
• (Optional) A pack of Path of Exile-themed Tarot cards (plus three additional random Tarot Cards signed by developers). Thank you to community creator Thiago Lehmann for designing these cards.

You can upgrade from one of these Supporter Packs to another in the same series by clicking "Upgrade" on the desired pack. The process will include any pure points packs purchased since 1pm December 20th PDT. The maximum amount that upgrades can contribute is 80% of the value of a pack.

Upgrades can be done automatically via the store by pressing M in game. If you run into any issues, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@grindinggear.com and we'll be happy to help.

We hope you really enjoy these Supporter Packs! Thank you so much for your generous support!