Path of Exile 2 patch 0.5.5 brings the Forbidden Rites event league, a fresh economy reset, and the largest changes so far to the Trial of Chaos. It also moves Runes of Aldur content into the core game and reworks how Rituals appear during the campaign. There are no Skill Gem or Ascendancy balance changes in this update, so existing builds keep working exactly as they do now.
Quick answer: Log in on September 4, 2026 at 1 PM PDT (20:00 UTC) and create a new character in the Forbidden Rites league to join the fresh economy. Your old Early Access and Runes of Aldur characters stay intact, and the Runes of Aldur league keeps running.
Release time: September 4, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT (20:00 UTC)
Forbidden Rites league and the campaign Ritual takeover
The King in the Mists and his cultists have spread their rituals across Wraeclast, and every campaign area now holds a guaranteed Ritual encounter. These campaign Rituals are different from their endgame versions. Instead of only offering Unique items, they drop items useful for leveling, including Currency for crafting your gear and a batch of equipment.
Twice within each Act, and once within each Interlude, you will find clusters of Ritual Effigies on the World Map. In these areas the effigies sit directly on top of the area’s boss fight rather than in a random spot. Defeat one of these boss Rituals and that boss is carried forward into the next Ritual in the cluster, where you fight it again as part of an escalating series of boss waves. Clear the full chain and you spend your Tribute on Unique items.
The event runs in Standard, Hardcore, and Solo Self-Found variations, and you can build private league versions of each. Hardcore Forbidden Rites is parented to the Standard version, so a death in Hardcore drops your character into Standard Forbidden Rites rather than back to the old economy. Private leagues can be set up through the official private league creation page.
Event challenges and exclusive rewards
Forbidden Rites adds a new set of challenges tied to cosmetic rewards that can only be earned during this league. From your first completed challenge onward, you also receive pieces of the Forbidden Rites Totem decoration for your hideout. The finished Totem Pole permanently shows how many challenges you completed during the event.
| Challenges completed | Reward |
|---|---|
| 2 | Locust Footprints |
| 4 | Locust Swarm Rare Finisher Effect |
| 6 | Wildwood Guardian Pet |
| 8 | Wildwood Affliction Level-up effect |
Ritual and Viridian Wildwood changes
Party members can now earn their own Ritual Tribute from completing Ritual encounters. Each player gets a limited selection of rewards to buy with Tribute or offer to the King in the Mists, and rewards offered to party members cannot be rerolled. In party play, everyone in the area must hear Aoife’s introduction before the Ritual can begin, which prevents the old case where one player started the encounter and others missed it.
Sacred Blooms return as a Ritual reward. Applying one adds the Viridian Wildwood to a cluster of Maps on your Atlas. Inside the Wildwood you follow and collect trails of Wisps, and when you leave, the monsters in the Map become stronger and more rewarding based on the Wisps you gathered. The Viridian Wildwood Unique Map has been disabled, and existing copies on your Atlas are rerolled into another Unique Map where possible.
Using more than one Ritual Tablet now adds an extra Altar to a Map when possible and increases the quantity of Azmeri Wisps you collect inside the Wildwood. A new Royal Lenience notable Ritual Atlas Passive lets Tribute already offered to the King be used to Defer items, though deferring favours this way costs 500% more offered Tribute.
Trial of Chaos rework
The biggest structural change is that you can now leave a Trial of Chaos run at any point and resume it later from the same room. That removes the old lock where starting a run forced you to finish it before trading or logging off. Each room now ends with a reward chest, so dying no longer wipes your entire set of rewards.
Full-run rewards are now Currency and Soul Cores only, and Corrupted items are no longer a possible outcome. The Trialmaster can no longer drop Magic rarity Inscribed Ultimatums. Because Atlas Passive bonuses do not apply inside the Trial, the area now carries inherent bonuses based on its level, covering Magic and Rare monster chance, pack size, Rare modifier count, boss drop quality and quantity, and the chance to drop Exceptional items.
When you complete an Inscribed Ultimatum with 10 Trials, you can continue immediately without supplying another Inscribed Ultimatum item. You can do this twice per Inscribed Ultimatum, and each successful continuation awards a different Trialmaster Fragment. Modifiers and reward quality carry over, so continuing means both higher difficulty and better rewards. Each continue prompt also offers an optional double-or-nothing Currency wager.
Encounter design received a broad pass as well:
- Uxmal, the Beastlord has a fully redesigned arena and no longer flies around the fight.
- Modifiers have more tiers, apply far less raw difficulty, and now display actual values instead of vague descriptions.
- Turrets and Petrification Statues can now appear together and are spread more evenly through rooms.
- Burning and Shocking Turrets now fire a single projectile at a fixed rate, starting at 3 turrets with more added at higher tiers.
- Petrification Statues start at 2 per encounter, with higher tiers adding more.
- Escort the Statue, Sacrifice Monsters, and Implant the Soul Cores encounters appear less often than Slay all Monsters and Survive.
- The Survive encounter spawns waves faster once cleared, adds guaranteed Rare monsters on some waves, and killing those Rares reduces the timer.
- The Trialmaster now only stops time at the very start of a run instead of in nearly every room.
- Doors open sooner, elevators are more responsive and larger, and levers call elevators much faster.
New and reworked Soul Cores
A large batch of new Soul Cores joins the loot pool, including thirteen Jiquani’s variants (Abundance, Automation, Malediction, Munitions, Quaking, Radiance, Rallying, Rippling, Severing, Snares, Squalls, Targeting, and Thundering) and four Atziri’s variants (Devotion, Alacrity, Inoculation, and Vitality).
Several existing Soul Cores were rebalanced, and several now have a Limit of 1. The table below covers the reworked bonuses.
| Soul Core | Updated effect |
|---|---|
| Atmohua’s Soul Core of Retreat | 40% increased Max Energy Shield from Focus in Body Armour, 30% from Body Armour in a Focus |
| Cholotl’s Soul Core of War | 20% chance to Chain an additional time from terrain in a Bow |
| Estazunti’s Soul Core of Convalescence | 15% increased speed of Recoup Effects in Boots, 10% of Damage Recouped as Life in a Helmet |
| Jiquani’s Thesis Soul Core | +1 Maximum Mana per 3 Item Armour on equipped Helmet |
| Uromoti’s Soul Core of Attenuation | 20% increased Curse Duration, 20% increased Poison Duration |
| Soul Core of Atmohua | Convert 40% of Requirements to Strength |
| Soul Core of Cholotl | Convert 40% of Requirements to Dexterity |
| Soul Core of Zantipi | Convert 40% of Requirements to Intelligence |
| Soul Core of Citaqualotl | 40% increased Elemental Damage with Attacks in a Martial Weapon, 6% all Elemental Resistances in Armour |
| Soul Core of Jiquani (Limit 1) | Recover 5% Max Life on Kill in a Martial Weapon, 5% increased Max Life in Body Armour |
| Soul Core of Opiloti (Limit 1) | 40% increased Bleed Magnitude in a Martial Weapon, 25% increased Pin Duration in a Helmet |
| Soul Core of Puhuarte (Limit 1) | 40% increased Ignite Magnitude in a Martial Weapon, +2% Max Fire Resistance in Gloves |
| Soul Core of Tacati | +13% Chaos Resistance in Armour, 25% increased Poison Magnitude in a Martial Weapon |
| Soul Core of Ticaba (Limit 1) | Hits against you have 50% reduced Critical Damage Bonus in Body Armour or Shields |
| Soul Core of Topotante (Limit 1) | Penetrate 25% Elemental Resistances in a Martial Weapon, 25% reduced Non-Damaging Ailment effect in Boots |
| Soul Core of Tzamoto (Limit 1) | 60% increased Freeze Buildup in a Martial Weapon, +2% Max Cold Resistance in a Helmet |
| Soul Core of Xopec (Limit 1) | 25% increased Shock Magnitude in a Martial Weapon, +2% Max Lightning Resistance in Boots |
| Soul Core of Zalatl (Limit 1) | Recover 4% Max Mana on Kill in a Martial Weapon, 5% increased Max Mana in a Helmet |
Runes of Aldur and Expedition move to core
Farrow, Dannig, and Expedition content are now a permanent part of the Atlas, including in Standard League, and appear in the game from Act 4 onward. Expedition Tablets can be found in Standard and in the Forbidden Rites league, but not in the Runes of Aldur league. Stacking these tablets scales the Expedition content on a Map.
| Expedition Tablets | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | Adds a Kalguuran Expedition to a Map |
| 2 | Adds a Verisium Remnant and 35% increased Expedition density |
| 3 | Adds an additional Kalguuran Expedition |
| 4 | Adds another Verisium Remnant and another 35% increased density |
Increased Expedition density raises the number of Chests, Monster Flags, and Verisium Remnants at the site. New tablet modifiers cover increased Explosive Area of Effect, more Logbooks from Runic Monsters, additional bosses encased in ice, and additional Verisium Sentries. The Aldur’s Saga cannot be obtained outside the Runes of Aldur league, but its special modifiers can appear naturally on Grand Expeditions when using a Logbook in Standard and Forbidden Rites. Completing The Runeseeker quest in Act 4 unlocks the Verisium Anvil outside the Runes of Aldur league, after which Farrow can be placed in your Hideout, and Expedition Uniques can go in the Unique Item Stash Tab in all leagues.
Endgame and boss changes
Several pinnacle bosses lose their blanket “All Elemental Resistances” and gain specific weaknesses, which rewards more targeted damage types.
| Boss | New resistance profile |
|---|---|
| Arbiter of Ash | Fire Resistance, Cold Vulnerability |
| Arbiter of Divinity | Lightning Resistance, Fire Vulnerability |
| Omniphobia, Fear Manifest | No longer has All Elemental Resistances |
| Raven Trickster | No longer has All Elemental Resistances |
- Large Abyssal Ravines can appear across the Atlas, and Maps on them are guaranteed to contain Abysses.
- Beating the Arbiter of Divinity with the non-quest Origin Core now completes the entire Precursor Fortress for the Map owner, opening full Atlas Passive allocation.
- Failed Corrupted Nexus Maps can now be retried, and dying to a Map Boss no longer blocks the Corrupted Boss from spawning.
- Stabilising an Unstable Breach now spawns Rare Monsters in waves of 5 instead of all at once.
- The Trial of Sekhemas gains the same inherent area-level bonuses as the Trial of Chaos, starting at Area Level 65.
- The Matriarch Halls and Patriarch Halls can spawn closer to the Ziggurat Refuge on the Atlas.
- Grand Mirror Delirium Fog now spreads to a fixed 10 Maps, and Delirium Monster Packs stop scaling past 100% Deliriousness.
Interface and microtransaction updates
The Currency Exchange window gains a button to toggle between your Stash and Inventory panels. The World Map now marks the location you last used a waypoint from, and gaining Atlas Passive Skill Points triggers a notification. Your completed challenge count appears next to your name when you send a chat message, and using a Thaumaturgic Flux shows before-and-after values on a Kalguuran Skill Gem.
On the cosmetic side, the Vanishing Dye can now be applied to Foci, and the Azmeri Weapon Effect, Charges Effect, and Dodge Roll Effect gain a dynamic tier that shifts based on your highest attribute, matching the existing Azmeri Portal Effect.
Alongside these systems, 0.5.5 clears out a long list of bug fixes touching Trial of Chaos monsters, Expedition encounters, Weapon Set skill interactions, and several client and instance crashes. Since no Skill Gem or Ascendancy tuning ships here, the update is a stable point to test builds ahead of the 1.0 release, with the broader balance overhaul held for that launch.
