Path of Exile 2 has entered early access and is making significant waves on both Steam and Twitch, with the latter partly due to the availability of free rewards for viewers. The dark-fantasy ARPG is offering two weeks of free Twitch Drops, with different rewards available each week. During the first week, from December 6-14, players need to watch for three hours to claim the Energising Bolt Flask effect and the Halo of the Righteous helmet attachment. The second week, from December 14-22, also requires three hours of viewing but only grants the Temporal Lord's portal effect as a reward.
Additionally, those who support streamers by purchasing or gifting two Twitch subscriptions between December 6-22 will earn a Chimera pet. To collect all rewards, players must link their Path of Exile account with their Twitch account after watching for the specified duration. The presence of Twitch drops, combined with high anticipation among ARPG fans, led to Path of Exile 2 surpassing 1.1 million viewers on Twitch, outperforming Diablo 4's peak viewership of 954,000. Despite the game's servers not going live on time, viewers watched streamers waiting at the login screen and discussing their game strategies.
Over 1 million players paid $30 for early access to the game, which will eventually be free-to-play, exceeding developer Grinding Gear Games' expectations. Consequently, the developer expanded server capacity and upgraded databases to handle the influx of players, causing a slight delay in the early access launch. Game director Jonathan Rogers cautioned that login queues and server issues are likely during Path of Exile 2's opening weekend, and he is uncertain how the backend services will perform under the unexpectedly high player numbers.
For more insights into the next-generation ARPG, explore how cross-play and cross-progression function in Path of Exile 2, and gather all necessary information about the game's early-access period.
Source link: https://www.gamespot.com
