2023 has been an amazing year for Path of Exile, with ExileCon 2023 being held in New Zealand, as well as reveals of Path of Exile 2 along with three full expansions for Path of Exile 1! Check out some of the statistics below, as we take a moment to look back at this eventful year.

• We launched three expansions: Crucible, The Trial of the Ancestors and Affliction
  
• We broke last year's concurrent player record of 270,260 with 321,180 players!
  
• We teased the Sorceress in Path of Exile 2 at Summer Game Fest, then the Monk at the PC Gaming Show shortly after that.
  
• We held ExileCon 2023, where players from around the world came to New Zealand to celebrate all things Path of Exile.
  
• We announced that Path of Exile 2 will be a separate game from Path of Exile 1, each with their own cycles.
  
• We flew to Germany to attend Gamescom, then to Seattle for PAX West to show off the Druid in Path of Exile 2.
  
• We revealed the Mercenary and announced WASD movement for Path of Exile 2.
  
• We revamped Breach and Abyss, overhauling how they work and changing almost every Breach and Abyss Unique Item.
  
• We introduced an auto-battler style game mechanic in Trial of the Ancestors.
  
• We introduced Tattoos and Omens into the game.
  
• We added the Forbidden Sanctum into the core game!
  
• We changed the Chaos Orb stack size from 10 to 20.
  
• We introduced some QoL to trades, such as holding Alt to see the total currency added to the trade window, and being able to split currency stacks while in a trade.
  
• We temporarily brought back the Lake of Kalandra and Recombinators in our Blast from the Past event.
  
• Ebin Ebon Evan Eben learned how to pronounce "attributes".
  
• Tane vanished from the Atlas. I wonder, is Tane still sane?
  
• We finally brought back Ultimatum!
  
• We've continued to finetune the balance of the Ruthless game mode.
  
• We held our very first Ruthless Solo Self-Found Boss Kill Event, with playlifee claiming first place and designing the Replica Dragonfang's Flight Unique Amulet as a result.
  
• We held another Boss Kill Event after that, with none other than Ben claiming first prize.
  
• We overhauled the Saboteur, Pathfinder, Chieftain and Guardian Ascendancies, giving them new tools to build around.
  
• We added both the Voidborne Reliquary Key and Valdo's Puzzle Box to the game, letting supporters leave their mark in Path of Exile.
  
• We updated Path of Exile's distance units to work with the Metric system.
  
• We introduced three new alternate Ascendancies in Affliction.
  
• We overhauled Skill Gems, giving a heaping ton of them one or more Transfigured versions, enabling more builds and ways to play.
  
• With the removal of Alternate Gems, we overhauled Heist and buffed all the Heist Base items, like the Simplex Amulet.
  
• We (kinda) buffed Cleave's radius to +0.1 metres to per 3 Rage.
  
• We posted news 371 times, with a first time temporary news break before ExileCon 2023.
  
• We posted approximately 3401 lines of Patch Notes, across 85 patches and hotfixes. We also posted approximately 1898 lines of Patch Notes on Console.
  
• And finally, we sold 185,132 Weta Pets!

A big thank you to everyone for playing Path of Exile and for your support. Here's to another year!

Happy Holidays chasers ! 2023 was a pivotal year for Outbrk and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store planned for 2024. It might be a vacation for many of you, but we certainly have been hard at work this month integrating more car cosmetics, testing and scaling our systems and updating the in-game Dominator 3 car model.

We integrated all 25 kickstarter backer reward text and image decals on all our playable cars, and created about 15 new unique decals so all players can give a unique look to their chase car. Here are a few screenshots :



We did multiple test sessions and identified bugs that needed fixing in priority. Below are all the things we fixed, but the highlights are the following : fixed issues with voice and text chat, fixed a bug where players were getting stuck loading into an online game, and changed entirely the way we do the ocean, lakes and rivers to fix a crash that was introduced recently by the water rendering system.
December 18th
December 21th
December 23rd
December 24th


Making an online game means putting a lot of effort into the stability of the game servers and matchmaking systems. This month we initiated the process of moving all our game servers into a scalable service to support more players and be more robust than our own personal hardware. Moving our Outbrk multiplayer game servers from a 2nd computer in a closet to the professional liveops service playfab.com , is a big step to concretize the eventual early access release of the game.

The Dominator 3 was one of the first car models integrated in Outbrk, but since its initial reveal, the game progressed so much the car needed a visual update to match the quality of our other playable cars. Here are some screenshots of the updated in-game model without side decals, temporarily :





We’re in the middle of the big server infrastructure switch and it is going well so far. This will require a lot of testing, but this will also allow us to increase our testing team in the near future, so this is exciting! Once this is done, we will be increasing the playtest frequency and player pool size to stress test our servers as much as possible.


That's all for this development update ! Please keep Wishlisting the game on Steam, as it helps us break through the visibility algorithm and reach potential new chasers! If you haven't already, Wishlist OUTBRK here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Till next time, chasers.
-The OUTBRK Team

The leaderboard should now properly remember your highest ever score.

1. New achievements: Transformation, Exploration, III, Becoming a Master
2. New core: Chip Master (unlocked after completing the "Exploration III" achievement)
3. New unit: Golden Gyroscope (unlocked after completing the "Rotation" achievement)
4. New chip: Understanding (unlocked after completing the achievement of "becoming a master")
5. Fix the bug where shield units become ineffective when the armor value is negative. After optimization, the minimum durability of shield units is 1 point, and they can activate the shield effect at least once
6. Fix the bug where dismantling the unit from the root during the initial stage of the Dragonfly caused the unit to overlap

- Nerfed villager-to-villager trading by preventing villagers trading for items they want rather than need. If a villager had no building goal and was particularly motivated, it sometimes led to disruptive behaviour where they would continuously start trades until they’d completely bankrupt themselves
- Fixed villagers requiring a pickaxe to get stones (since some stones are gatherable by hand) and therefore being unable to ever gather stone again if their starting pickaxe was destroyed or traded away
- Fixed pickaxes being equipped when villagers are moving to gather stones by hand
- Fixed villagers sometimes getting perma-stuck gathering mud when they don’t have a shovel
- Fixed house constructions having too short colliders which caused some trouble on hilly terrain
- Fixed some decorations loading in mid-air
- Fixed newly immigrated villagers trying to contribute to already completed buildings
- Fixed newly immigrated villagers trying to use incomplete buildings
- Fixed villagers getting stuck using the tavern or mine under some circumstances

Hello Explorers! We've been quiet lately but rest assured: we are hard at work putting together exciting things for our collective futures. To thank you (and your friends) for coming along on this journey we have made some minor updates to our Discord server by adding limited time access to a new role of Original Explorers. You're part of our community now, and so deserve some special treatment.

We have some *pretty cool* announcements coming in the new year and we want to make sure you, the Original Explorers, get to benefit from the news first. BUT it's not too late to be an OG: join our Discord on or before January 8th, 2024 to receive the Original Explorer role. So invite your friends! Spread the word! Share this server link: https://discord.gg/UzRMYj5zHx

Here's to further safe and happy explorations in 2024!

Dear friends,
As we enter the New Year, we want to express our deepest gratitude for your support and patience.

We're humbly glad to share that our game will be released next year.
We will update you with more details soon: new materials and closed beta are coming!

Wishing you all a year filled with joy, health, and memorable gaming moments.

Thank you for being with us,
Team Cognition

Fixed a bug that may occur on high def screens.

Bugs:
-Fixed random enemy targeting effects such as fireworks and beaver tail from occasionally ignoring size 2 and 3 enemies
-Fixed beaver tail triggering when the holder swapped backwards rather than forwards
-Removed the ability to move off of an event after it triggered if you held down the movement keys.
-Fixed stairs and campsites rapidly retriggering if you held down the movement keys while leaving them.
-Fixed being able to use consumables while travelling
-Fixed being able to use firewood on existing campsites and stairs
-Fixed size two enemies drawing themselves a second time when targeted by a multihit move.
-Fixed an issue where multitarget skills wouldn't trigger on kill.
-On kill effects should now check if any enemies died, not just the target.
-On kill effects can now trigger multiple times if you kill multiple enemies with one skill.

QoL:
-Updated Drop Off description
-Updated some status tooltips to be more consistent across all skills
-Updated all ally targeting skill tooltips to avoid confusion when targeting the caster
-Backpacks will no longer show an empty row when carrying 8, 12, 16 artifacts.


Buffs:
-Fireworks now has a higher base damage

Nerfs:
-Prepared no longer gives a gray orb if you don't have one
-Self targeting skills can no longer trigger ally artifacts/equipment like megaphone or tinfoil hat

Mods:
How UI text files are saved had to be reworked for cloud saves. Now all UI files are stored inside the UIFiles directory. If you have a text mod, you'll need to place it into the new directory when uploading.

Fixed 2 bugs

• When you step on a room transition square, you could step/turn away, and the screen would get dark but there would be no transition
  
• If you paused/unpaused, multiple songs could play