Path of Exile 2 is entering early access on November 15, 2024, there's been a lot of discussion about how this will work and what you need to do to get access. The following article is speculative and covers how GGG handled early access for major updates in the past. They may do the same for PoE 2, or may decide to do something different!
Original Beta
Back in 2012, GGG ran a crowdfunding campaign for Path of Exile. This included selling supporter packs which gave access to the closed beta. There were varying levels, with the first being $10 USD. That got you a key and 100 points to spend on cosmetics. Larger packs included more keys.
Awakening and Fall of Oriath
During the 2.0 Awakening update and 3.0 Fall of Oriath update, there was also a closed beta or early access period. In particular, we have a lot of details about how the early access went for Fall of Oriath. Some players got invites, but for everyone else a key could be purchased through a $30 USD supporter pack, this came with 250 points to spend on cosmetics (which costs ~$25 USD). In addition, anyone with $500 USD in lifetime spending got access automatically.
For the Awakening beta, GGG sent out 1 invite every 5 minutes, resulting in 288 invites per day. During the Fall of Oriath beta, they used an accelerated pace, resulting in roughly 500-1000 per day.
Path of Exile 2
There is no official announcement on how to get early access to PoE 2. In several interviews, Jonathan Rogers, game director for Path of Exile 2 has said the early access is going to be handled similarly to previous betas. In particular, he called out the Fall of Oriath Beta, but the game has grown a lot in the past 7 years, so the previous numbers may not reflect the number of invites GGG sends for PoE 2. GGG has confirmed that the early access is going to run simultaneously on PC, Mac, and Console with full crossplay and cross-progression.
Originally, Path of Exile 2 was going to have a closed beta in June of 2024. This was delayed, and when the PoE 2 website launched the term changed from "closed beta" to "early access." This prompted a lot of speculation, but in an interview with Talkative Tri, Jonathan said the change was just a matter of marketing and using modern terminology. It does not reflect changes to access.
So far, GGG has done a few closed tests of PoE 2 under NDA. These are invite only and very little is known about the content available or who was given access. More recently they held demos for GamesCom 2024 and PAX West where players got hands-on with some gameplay from the campaign.
Written by: Tenkiei
