Path of Exile 3.29 Release Date & Overview

Path of Exile 3.29 is expected to launch July 3 or July 10, 2026. Pick whichever date your denial prefers. GGG runs a four-month alternating cycle between PoE 1 and PoE 2, and since 3.28 Mirage dropped March 6, the math writes itself.

3.28 Mirage end: Late June / early July 2026: typically 4–5 days before the next league begins. Use that window to touch grass. You won't get another chance.

Some players speculate GGG might skip 3.29 entirely to focus on PoE 2. Adorable. GGG has explicitly stated PoE 1 will "go forever." Whether "forever" still means quality is a separate question.

The State of Things

3.29 arrives at a genuinely awkward moment. ExileCon 2026 is on the horizon, PoE 2 is grinding toward full release, and GGG is running dual live-service development with a team that is: by director Mark Roberts' own admission: under strain. Two-month gaps produce "rushed products." Four-month cycles are comfortable. You are receiving the comfortable version. Be grateful.

The GGG development cycle has matured into a rhythm: PoE 1 gets a major seasonal league, PoE 2 gets its update four months later, repeat until heat death. The upside is predictability. The downside is that PoE 1 leagues now share a design calendar with a sequel that is actively competing for the same senior staff.

Honest disclaimer: No official details for 3.29 exist at the time of writing. Everything below is community speculation, pattern analysis, and extrapolation. If GGG surprises everyone with something extraordinary, this guide will quietly age out. Such is the exile life.

League Mechanic Predictions

3.28 Mirage brought distorted Astral Realm instances, captured Djinn, and Varashta the Winter Sekhema handing you three wishes like you've earned them. It was experimental, risky, and divisive: the hallmarks of a mechanic GGG will revisit in two years and call a "fan favourite return."

For 3.29, the community has coalesced around a Harbinger league revival as the frontrunner. The logic is sound: Harbinger is beloved, its proximity-shield blue aliens are iconic, and it pairs effortlessly with Beyond and other density mechanics. An updated version for 2026 gameplay would be low-effort nostalgia farming. GGG would not be the first studio to mine its own history.

What Players Are Begging For

• Campaign skip: after the first completion, obviously. The request is eternal. GGG's position oscillates between "we're looking into it" and silence.
• Atlas tree rework: 3.28 already touched it with the Genesis Tree overhaul. 3.29 will either refine that or introduce a new layer of complexity nobody asked for.
• New Ascendancy class: 3.28 gave Scion the Reliquarian, drawing from unique item powers. Reasonable to expect another class gets attention in 3.29.
• Endgame boss additions: the pinnacle boss roster does not refresh itself.

The new league mechanic: whatever it turns out to be: will be either immediately broken or quietly ignored for three weeks before a hotfix makes it relevant. This is not cynicism; this is documentation.

Economy & Currency

Every fresh league resets the economy to zero. This is the closest thing to equality Path of Exile offers. Enjoy it for approximately 72 hours, after which someone with 400 hours of in-game time this league will have six mirrors and you will be selling Orbs of Alteration for gas money.

Early league is when the PoE currency farming opportunities peak. Demand for gear, maps, and uniques surges as players race to optimize builds. If you know what to flip, you will profit. If you do not, you will at least learn an expensive lesson about the merits of bulk trading.

Standard League remains an option. Player count is lower, economy is mature, and you can theoretically pick up where you left off. You will not. Nobody does. You will roll a new character in the seasonal league with the other 95% of the population.

Currency Priority: League Start

1. Chaos Orbs: still the baseline trading currency at league start
2. Orbs of Alteration: undervalued early, critical for certain crafting strategies
3. Divine Orbs: endgame standard; do not hoard them in Acts
4. Exalted Orbs: irrelevant until maps, invaluable after

PoE 1 vs PoE 2 in 2026

The existential dread is real: will GGG eventually let PoE 1 atrophy into a maintenance product? Short answer: not yet. Path of Exile 2 full release is still on the horizon, but GGG has committed to both games running in parallel indefinitely. Roberts is reportedly already in design meetings for 3.29 and claims to be "having a blast." Whether that enthusiasm survives contact with a release deadline is left as an exercise for the reader.

The dual development strain is documented. Senior designers context-switching between two live ARPGs is, charitably, not optimal. Less charitably, it is why two-month gaps produce products Roberts himself describes as rushed. The four-month cycle exists precisely to prevent this. 3.29 should benefit from adequate development time: assuming nothing pulls the team sideways between now and July.