Path of Exile Reveals Curse of the Allflame League and Release Schedule

Grinding Gear Games will reveal Path of Exile's next challenge league, Curse of the Allflame, on July 16 at 1 PM PDT, with the 3.29 expansion launching free on PC and consoles on July 24. The studio confirmed both dates directly on its forums on July 5, closing the gap on days of conflicting reveal-date rumors floating around fan sites.

The stream airs on the official Path of Exile Twitch channel, with Game Director Mark and Game Designer Octavian walking through the expansion and its new league mechanic before sitting down for a Q&A hosted by community creator ZiggyD. GGG says the presentation covers "the 3.29 expansion for Path of Exile, its challenge league and other content," with a Twitch Drops reward detailed the following week — standard pre-launch hype-building for a studio that's run this exact playbook since Ancestor and Settlers.

Beyond the two confirmed dates, GGG is staying tight-lipped. The teaser leans into an underwater horror tone — a boat, an "ancient curse," and glimpses of something enormous beneath the surface — a sharp swing away from the Breachlord-and-fire theme of Keepers of the Flame, the league that's been running since October 31. No mechanics, boss names, or economy changes have leaked yet; that's reserved for the July 16 stream.

What's notable here is what GGG didn't say: no mention of sunsetting Path of Exile 1 in favor of its numbered sequel. I've seen plenty of live-service studios quietly let an older title's content cadence slip once a sequel ships, and GGG explicitly hasn't done that — this is the same roughly-quarterly league cycle the original game has kept since 2013, running in parallel with Path of Exile 2's own content plans. That parallel-support model is unusual enough in this genre that it's worth flagging on its own, regardless of what Curse of the Allflame's mechanic turns out to be.

For the competitive side, a fresh league means a fresh economy and ladder race, and speedrunners and streamers will be building strategies off nothing but a teaser and a curse theme until the 16th. I'd expect the same rush of early tier-list and build-planning content that follows every GGG reveal, just compressed into an unusually short eight-day window between stream and launch. Whether Curse of the Allflame's actual mechanic can sustain that hype past week one is the real test — GGG's reveal record is strong, but not every recent league has held its player count into month two.