Path of Exile Release Date Announced!

Path of Exile by Grinding Gear Games, is an action RPG that's been in open beta for quite a while now. I've written about it before, so I'm not going to spend time describing the game. The thing I will talk about is the October 23rd launch date for Release 1.0.

GGG has posted a summary of media links on their forums. Along with the actual release date announcement, they've also shown or announced a bunch of new features, including:

• The Scion, a new prestige character class that has to be unlocked during game play. The Scion is a three-stat hybrid class that starts at the center of the massive skill tree.
• Steam Integration, which should get more eyes into the game.
• Trigger Gems are a new class of support gem that allow spell action on specific events, like on kill, or on stun. By linking these gems to spells, you can set off spell effects when good (or bad) stuff happens.
• New Leagues, with passing mention of a four-month league cycle.
• Two New PvP Setups, a timed tournament style race event, and a two- or three-way capture the flag event.
• New Act III Content, including a new final boss battle.
• Trade Chests, to streamline trading items between characters.
• Guild Support, including guild storage.
• Guardian, a skill that allows you to animate items as a creature to fight for you. Can you say Iron Golem?
• Act IV, while not part of release, is being worked on right now.
• More stuff that I missed.

All in all a big chunk of new stuff happening. The best of the media stuff linked from the forum post is probably the Gamespot interview, which includes a fair bit of new gameplay showing the Scion class and new Act III zones. I'm looking forward to seeing it live!