Path of Exile 2 is set to be released on launch day here, Friday, December 6, but if you woke up expecting to play after downloading the game on Steam, for instance, you were met with a message that simply says “Planned Release Date: Coming Soon.” Not very helpful.
Well, servers did not in fact go live early in the morning here in the Americas, but they will be online soon enough. The server activation/release times for Path of Exile 2 are:
- PST – 11 AM, Friday, December 6
- EST – 2 PM, Friday, December 6
- GMT – 7 PM, Friday, December 6
So you have to wait until early lunchtime on the west coast and mid-afternoon on the east coast. Given that most people will be at work or school, that is not the end of the world. But if you’re like me and were planning to play right away, it’s a bit disappointing.
Path of Exile recently announced a major milestone about the launch, but it also came with a warning:
“We’ve just reached 1 million Early Access redemptions. The support you have all shown for Path of Exile 2 Early Access is far beyond anything we could have ever predicted. However, we want to be upfront with you all and let you know there may very well be queues over the weekend.”
It is not unexpected that Path of Exile 2 will launch with queues or possible server issues. However, if you believe in miracles, maybe it can pull off a flawless launch like Marvel Rivals, which had no problems, instant matches, no queues, and no lag. It was quite impressive, albeit rare in online releases.
As for Path of Exile 2, this game is about to make a big impact on the ARPG scene, and even Diablo executives have gone from criticizing the game to expressing excitement to start playing. Hopefully, this will motivate Blizzard to further improve Diablo now that it’s facing some serious competition. We’ll see how everything unfolds later today when the servers go up.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.