Path of Exile is back in full force with Secrets of the Atlas, the next major expansion arriving June 13 as part of the highly anticipated 3.26 update. Secrets of the Atlas introduces a new endgame progression system involving distorted memories, challenging boss fights, and item crafting enhancements that increase build potential one hundredfold. Alongside the Mercenaries of Trarthus challenge league and the full integration of gold-based mechanics from Settlers of Kalguur, the update is a major step forward for Path of Exile and a clear sign that Wraeclast's best days may still be ahead.
In a recent interview with The Best War Games, Path of Exile game director Mark Roberts went into detail about Secrets of the Atlas and all the update entails. The interview began, however, with a deep dive into how the new pause system will work, which has already been implemented into Path of Exile 2's framework and will now finally be added to the first game after plenty of requests.
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How Path of Exile's New Pause Feature Works
Path of Exile's Pause System Keeps Things Fair
One of the biggest additions in Path of Exile's 3.26 update is a feature that players have been asking about for years that has since been added in Path of Exile 2 but not its predecessor — the ability to pause the game. While Path of Exile has always been a game that requires the player's constant attention, pausing hasn't always made sense because of how the game's instances and networking are structured. That’s changing with the upcoming Secrets of the Atlas update, and while the new system comes with limitations, it will be a significant quality-of-life improvement for the game. Roberts explained:
The simple way is, when you press Escape, you pause, just to get through the ultimate basics of it. Same when you open the menu on console. So, when you're engaging with a mercenary, it flags you as a pause. And when I say "flag you as paused," it's because in multiplayer, every player has to have opted in for pausing for it to pause the area, that way you can't disrupt other people while they're playing. We have this in PoE 2 as well. It works the same way, and it works pretty well.
Essentially, the pause system works by ensuring that certain full-screen actions function as "pause states," but Path of Exile's multiplayer will require a manual opt-in for pausing to prevent one player’s pause from affecting another player's session. Just as is the case with Path of Exile 2, this instanced pausing keeps things fair while still giving players time to explore menus or step away from the game for a moment. As for how pausing is handled during high-latency situations, Roberts elaborated:
If you're having networking issues, it will automatically pause the instance, which will prevent you from dying or anything of the sort happening. As soon as you start lagging and lag is detected, which is effectively just dropped frames, then it will pause the game, and of course that applies to disconnection as well. So, if you disconnect, the soonest moment it can know that you've disconnected, it will pause the game. So for Hardcore, you have a much, much lower chance of dying.
So, there's also a failsafe implemented to help Path of Exile's Hardcore players avoid losing a character to lag or disconnection. If the game detects that the player's client is no longer communicating, it will automatically pause the instance. While the detection method relies on dropped packets and frame issues, it's fast enough to actually mean something. It’s not a 100% guarantee of survival, but it significantly reduces the risk of losing progress due to circumstances beyond the player's control.
Path of Exile's Pause System Has Its Limits
This change is especially important for Path of Exile, which has traditionally been pretty ruthless when it comes to death penalties. In leagues where a single mistake can result in permanent character loss, a split-second lag spike used to be a death sentence. Now, Path of Exile's new pause system creates a kind of safety net, recognizing that not all defeats are fair, and making an effort to preserve progress when circumstances are out of the player's hands. There are caveats to this system, however, which Roberts touched on as well:
Now for bosses, it's not like every boss is immune to pausing; some are. We spoke about them as the pinnacle bosses, and these are kind of like the ten hardest bosses in the game. Now, the reason we've done that is because it obviously does get a little bit exploitative. When that is the case, people can just press escape and then see what the boss' next skill is going to be, or as they're doing the telegraphing for it, pause and go, "Okay, I'm going to run here," and then they unpause and attack, and then they pause. So, the general easy thing for us to do there was to prevent pausing during those boss fights.
As Roberts stated, not every encounter is treated equally. In order to maintain fairness across the board, the pause system is disabled during Path of Exile's pinnacle boss fights. These limits are in place specifically to stop players from abusing the pause system for their own gain and effectively cheating, as GGG might see it. Ultimately, it's a trade-off that preserves Path of Exile's biggest challenges while still offering some flexibility in almost every other aspect of the game.
The new pause system in Path of Exile 3.26 marks a big step toward making the game more accessible without compromising its challenge. While it won't affect Path of Exile's hardest fights, it still gives players better control over their experience. It's also a promising look at how Path of Exile continues to benefit from the systems being tested in PoE 2, effectively bridging the gap between the franchise's present and its evolving future.
- Released
- October 23, 2013
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Nudity, Language
- Developer(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Publisher(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Path of Exile
- PS5 Release Date
- September 6, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
