Path of Exile 2 features a fairly lengthy main campaign with a fair bit of side content sprinkled all over it, giving players a chance to grow strong and find out more about the world they're in. Of course, everything has an end, and for this game, it's all a matter of doing things all over again.
While much of Path of Exile 2's planned content isn't available during its early access phase, it still has a lot to offer, and once you've gone through the available story chapters, Cruel difficulty will welcome you with open arms.
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How to Unlock Cruel Difficulty
To keep things simple, Cruel difficulty is unlocked as soon as you finish Act 3 of PoE 2's main storyline. It's basically New Game Plus for your character — you'll loop back to Act 1, but all enemies will be scaled to a much higher level. You'll also encounter enemies from later stages of the game in earlier areas.
Given how PoE 2 is still in early access and the rest of the story isn't available yet, it's likely that Cruel difficulty will be removed once Acts 4 and onwards are added to the game. However, the remaining story acts are expected to be the same as the current Cruel difficulty acts in terms of monster level scaling.
What To Do After Finishing Act 3
Players will want to finish all three acts again on Cruel difficulty for a couple of reasons. First, monsters in these acts will be of much higher level compared to before, which means they'll yield better equipment, more XP, and more Gold in general. Second, the only way to reach the Atlas endgame (as of now) is to finish Act 3 on Cruel difficulty.
Every enemy is going to be tougher on Cruel difficulty, but if you've managed to beat the difficult Act 3 boss on Normal mode, you should have no issues. Monster health pools are significantly higher, and they'll all hit harder, which could complicate things if you're using a glass cannon build.
You can freely teleport back to Normal difficulty Acts by going to a waypoint.
Collect Ascendancy Points
If you didn't collect the Ascendancy Points from the Trial of the Sekhemas or Trial of Chaos in PoE 2, now would be a good time. Both trials are difficult if you challenge them at their intended levels, but they should be much easier if you've already beaten Act 3.
Farm Better Gear
As it happens, high-level Sekhemas and Chaos runs also yield good gear, provided you're up for a challenge. Both activities impose negative modifiers on players, making every run difficult to some degree (often a very high degree, at that), but if you make it to the end without dying, you'll likely get an inventory full of good loot. If you aren't lucky with your drops, you'll at least get some useful currency items from disenchanting unwanted gear.
Path of Exile II
- Released
- December 6, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Nudity, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Language, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
- Developer(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Publisher(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Franchise
- Path of Exile
- Early Access Release
- December 6, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash, MMORPG
