Grinding Gear Games (GGG), the developer of Path of Exile, has issued an apology to fans of the original game for the ongoing delay of its next update. The delay is attributed to the studio's focus on addressing critical issues and implementing key updates for Path of Exile 2.

GGG had previously assured fans that Path of Exile 1, which has been running for over a decade, would continue to receive updates throughout the development and launch of Path of Exile 2.

Originally slated for release before Path of Exile 2's launch last October, the 3.26 update was first postponed to mid-February of this year. Now, it faces further delays as the studio concentrates its efforts on resolving Path of Exile 2's ongoing challenges. The last league update for Path of Exile 1 was the Kalguur’s Settlement in July 2024.

In a video message, Jonathan Rogers, Game Director for Path of Exile 2 and co-founder of GGG, explained the decision to shift the Path of Exile 1 team to assist with polishing the endgame content of Path of Exile 2 for its December launch. The initial plan was to return to the 3.26 update after PoE2's release.

However, this proved to be unrealistic due to the significant issues encountered with Path of Exile 2.  "We were kidding ourselves," Rogers admitted, acknowledging that Path of Exile 2 not only faced a launch delay of several weeks but also suffered from crashes, balance problems, and other issues requiring immediate attention.

"How could I pull some of our most experienced developers off of Path of Exile 2 and put them on Path of Exile 1 when Path of Exile 2 was on fire?" Rogers questioned.

As a result, the Path of Exile 1 team continues to work on Path of Exile 2 and will remain focused on it until at least the release of the 0.2.0 update, and possibly for several weeks beyond that. The current version of Path of Exile 2 is 0.1.1.

Rogers added, "Unfortunately, I can’t give a firm date right now, and I’m really sorry it’s come to this. Honestly, I should have seen that pulling the Path of Exile 1 team off was going to lead to this outcome. I probably should’ve resisted doing that.  But at each stage, I kept thinking, we’ve got time, we’ve got time. And then we didn’t have time."

“We’ve got a lot to learn about running two games concurrently.  We got overconfident. We still need to figure out how to structure our studio to make this happen.  But we do have a solid plan for what we want to do for 3.26.”