As Path of Exile 2 prepares to launch into early access, developer Grinding Gear Games announces that sales are so high it’s already worried about queues despite its extensive preparation. The long-awaited sequel to one of the best RPGs on PC is aiming to capitalize on the incredible popularity of the genre in the wake of Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred, and it looks like it might be well on the way to doing just that.
“We’ve just passed one million redemptions for Path of Exile 2 keys, and sales are still increasing,” game director Jonathan Rogers says in a new video. When the full launch arrives, PoE 2 will be a free Steam game, but to play in early access you must buy at least the $30 bundle of microtransaction points for the in-game shop. “Obviously this is great news,” Rogers continues, “but it also comes with some downsides too.” GGG had previously stated that it had planned enough Path of Exile 2 servers to account for as many as a million players, but we’re already looking at the potential for more.
“There are probably going to be some queues during the launch weekend,” Rogers says. Typically, Path of Exile leagues have seen some queues right at launch, but they tend to calm down quickly as players all get through the door. “Before the launch, when we were ordering capacity, we really didn’t expect to have more than a million people online at the same time.”
Rogers says the team has already ordered more server capacity that will be coming online “very soon,” but that he does have “some concerns” about issues with the game’s backend systems. “We quite frankly don’t know what our backend services are going to be able to handle as we go above a million users.” The PoE 2 website already saw some downtime last night under the load of players eager to get ready for launch.
“We never expected things to go this big during EA,” Rogers concludes, “so I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you guys so much for believing in this project. If we do run into server issues at launch, just know that we’re going to be working as hard as we can to solve them.”
With the Path of Exile 2 release date just hours away at the time of writing, only time will tell exactly how well everything stays in place. Either way, it’s looking like Grinding Gear Games could have a real winner on their hands.
Get ready for launch by studying our guide to all Path of Exile 2 classes and picking out your first character, and then make sure to grab the Path of Exile 2 Twitch drops at launch for some more free goodies.
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