Path of Exile’s December 2 update will send its players into the Breach

Path of Exile’s next update will tear the fabric of reality — but not the leather of your wallet.

Grinding Gear Games will launch its Breach update at noon on December 2. It introduces a new realm, where you encounter a brace of terrifying monsters, powerful lords, and (of course) better loot. Path of Exile is 19th worldwide on the free-to-play massively multiplayer online market, says research firm SuperData, and this action role-playing game has over 14 million players.

The update is free, though you can purchase cosmetic items and effects as microtransactions — what Grinding Gear terms as “ethical” free-to-play.

Breach features include (from Grinding Gear’s press release):

• Enter the Breach: These are “tears in the fabric of reality” in Wraeclast, Path of Exile’s setting. You go into these to face monsters and snare loot.
• Challenge the Breachlords: These are new bosses that have even more loot than Breach’s beasts.
• Conquer a Breachlord’s Domain: You gather 100 Splinters to create a Breachstone, which you then use to get into a lord’s realm.
• Treasures of the Breach: Foes drop loot specific to their Domains. Lords drop blessings when you kill them in their realms.
• Performance Improvements: Content Update 2.5.0 includes the release of the 64-bit client that uses DirectX 11, which will lead to faster performance.
• Breach Supporter Packs: These feature points, forum titles, portrait frames, a weapon effect, a portal effect, and an entirely new type of microtransaction: cloaks.