With most of the world inside their homes due to the pandemic, there’s no better time for a grind-heavy MMORPG than right now—something like Path of Exile. And whether you’ve stuck around or come back to Wraeclast, it doesn’t matter. What does is that you’re just in time for its next update: Harvest!

Into the Grove

In Path of Exile: Harvest, you’ll be farming. Aside from the MMO-related definition of the word, you’ll be doing it in the game in a literal sense, as the expansion’s name suggests. Together with Oshabi, you’ll be cultivating the Sacred Grove, where ancient plants that hold strong and mysterious powers grow. Through this new mechanic, you’ll obtain all sorts of rewards, including POE Currency.

To come about with that objective, you’ll have to find the Seed Cache in the areas you go to. Then you enter the Sacred Grove. However, don’t think for a second that you’ll be raising vegetation that will directly produce the items you need. After all, Wraeclast is a notoriously treacherous place. That’s why after you give these bioluminescent flora the love and care they deserve, you will still have to take care of the monsters that will grow out of them to obtain your rewards!

With such a system, the kinds of enemies you’ll be facing are in your hands. However, instead of getting just loot from them, you’ll also be acquiring their Life Force. These are points that are specifically for upgrading your gear. It should go without saying that the better you raise your plants and the stronger the enemies they spawn, the better the loot and the more the Life Force they’ll yield. You can also raise monsters in order to get specific rewards. In Harvest, the world is literally your garden!

Not a Pipe Dream

Another thing you’ll love about Harvest is that not all of the horticulture is done by hand. You can put up pipes, condensers, and dispensers in order to grow the rarer seeds that produce stronger and equally rare monsters.

Then there are Ersi, Janaar, and Nahmarim, the three primordial beasts mentioned by Oshabi. These powerful fabled creatures give out the most prestigious rewards in all of the Sacred Grove. Be ready–you’re in for a fight of a different variety. Then again, we’re sure you already know that and you’re already up for the challenge!

Trees, Totems, and Gears

Like the usual expansion, Harvest brings new content and tweaks aside from the seasonal league mechanics. Among them, and perhaps the most impactful, are the changes to the passive skill tree. Support for certain mechanics, such as Two-handed Weapons and Rage and many others, will be improved, and so will numeric buffs. There will even be new clusters of passives. On top of that, keystone passives will also be improved, and it will include popular ones like Timeless Jewels, as well as completely new ones.

Certain skill categories will also have additions and revamps. A few melee skills will be re-categorized as slam skills, and there will be a new one. On top of that, the visual effects of slam skills will also be improved. As for warcries, four new ones will be added and three will be revamped. Their scaling will also be changed from the quantity of mobs to how powerful they are. Lastly, for brands, there will be three new ones, one new brand support gem, and there will be those that will be further improved.

Last but definitely not least, we’ll see the whopping overhaul of over fifty POE Uniques. This will have a massive effect on the metagame, and that’s an understatement!

With a unique mechanic and the many changes it introduces, Harvest is going to be one of the more significant Path of Exile updates. A few days from now, exiles are going to be able to plant food!