Socket colors have determined how Path of Exile builds come together for as long as the game has existed, but that finally changes with Curse of the Allflame, the new expansion Grinding Gear Games revealed during today’s GGG Live stream ahead of a July 24 launch. I sat in on the presentation, and while the expansion packs in plenty, the socket change is the biggest news here in my opinion.
Before getting into the details, here’s the short version of what update 3.29 includes: a new league built around ocean floor expeditions, a new crafting system, the Mercenaries of Trarthus going core, a new Scion Ascendancy, reworks for Abyss, Legion, and Talismans, a new endgame system called Atlas Anomalies, a major spellcaster balance pass, and two new Supporter Pack series. As usual, it’s a lot.
Socket Colors Reworked
Under the new system, sockets no longer have color requirements at all, meaning any skill gem can go into any socket on linked equipment. Colored sockets still exist, though, and they’ve been repurposed as a rarer, purely positive upgrade path, since slotting a matching gem into a colored socket now grants a bonus to that gem’s quality. Chromatic Orbs stick around too, now guaranteeing at least one red, blue, or green socket per use.
The team explained during the stream that the old restrictions created situations where players found a clear gear upgrade but couldn’t equip it without tearing their build apart, and that the colors limited experimentation without adding much in return. Socket counts and links still matter, so gearing isn’t trivial. The color lottery, though, is gone. If you’ve ever burned a stack of Chromatic Orbs chasing the right combination, this change is for you.
The Curse of the Allflame League
The league itself sends players beneath Wraeclast’s frozen seas in service of Valerie, a corsair captain who needs someone to recover the treasures hidden on the ocean floor. Her ship, The Sovereign, is steered by Vesper, a cursed navigator whose soul is bound to the vessel and kept burning by the Allflame. Charts scattered across Wraeclast point the way to underwater loot, and they’re guarded by the undead, rival corsairs, and sea creatures. Crabs included. Each encounter carries its own custom completion bonus, like a grateful spirit possessing you for the rest of the area.
Every expedition begins with a descent in the Bathysphere, an Allflame-powered vessel that drops you onto the sea floor. Survival depends on deploying Allflame Lanterns, which force back the surrounding water and create temporary pockets of safety, and you can place them manually or have new ones fired automatically as you reach the edge of the light. The depths hide treasure chests, lost missives, and a luminous coral that breaks down into Dead Man’s Sulphur, the resource fueling both the expedition and Vesper’s curse. Once your final lantern is placed, the lights start fading one by one, and the creatures of the deep rush in as you scramble back to the Bathysphere.
As for what you do with all those expeditions, every completed run records a Chart in Valerie’s journal, and Charts get arranged on the Voyage Board to build a single interconnected expedition of up to nine areas. Each Chart contributes a modifier affecting adjacent Charts or the whole Voyage, from converting equipment drops into Gold to spawning friendly jellyfish, empowering monsters with Wildwood Wisps, adding caged Tormented Spirits, or spawning giant starfish that always appear as rare monsters. Randomized Corruption Currents along the board’s edges shift with every new Voyage, and special Charts lead to uniquely rewarding spots like anchor fields strewn with treasure, lost Kalguuran shipments, and sunken Abyssal pits. Capsules in each area store roughly an inventory’s worth of loot and send it to the surface, so you can bank your haul before calling the Bathysphere for extraction.
Allflame Crafting and Ducats
All that Dead Man’s Sulphur does double duty as fuel for a new crafting system found belowdecks on The Sovereign. Hand Vesper an item, a crafting currency that could normally be applied to it, and enough Sulphur, and he splits the item into multiple ghostly outcomes, each showing a different result of that craft. You keep exactly one and the rest vanish forever. Most currency crafting works through the system, which gives far more control over expensive or high-risk crafting decisions, though each use leaves the item increasingly intangible and gradually reduces how many outcomes Vesper can generate on it in the future.
Hidden in the deepest waters are rare Ducats, relics of Wraeclast’s old pirate lords that unlock crafting effects unavailable through any other system. Kishara’s Ducat creates multiple ghostly copies of an item that each preserve one of its modifiers, which is ideal for generating powerful crafting bases. Genteel’s Ducat transforms one attribute requirement into another, and Brinehook’s Ducat grants mysterious Aspects inspired by the ancient gods of Wraeclast. These only come from specialized Charts, some of which lead to notably unwelcoming waters, and GGG teased at least one boss encounter tied to them.
Mercenaries of Trarthus Go Core, Plus the Luminary Ascendancy
For those who missed the original Mercenaries of Trarthus league, the setup is pretty straightforward: honor-bound warriors roam Wraeclast looking for duels, and they’re now a permanent core mechanic appearing from Act 3 onward. Before each duel you can inspect the Mercenary’s equipment and skills, then wager Gold against an item they’re carrying. Lose and you forfeit the Gold. Win and you claim the item plus the Mercenary’s temporary service as an ally, whether that means powerful auras or a companion who does the killing for you. Unlike the original league, an allied Mercenary doesn’t count as a party member, so monster life and item drops stay untouched.
Mercenaries encountered in Maps can also grant Warrants, which summon that same warrior to a future Map with their signature skills and a fresh set of equipment. Each Mercenary only grants their Warrant once, and Warrants can be traded to other players. The mechanic gets full Atlas Passive Tree and Scarab integration, including the Trarthan Scarab of Renown, which spawns a Mercenary covered head to toe in Unique items, and the Trarthan Scarab of Infamy, which forces a powerful Infamous Mercenary to spawn with two backup Mercenaries in tow. There are new Mercenary types as well, including one found exclusively in rare encounters on the sea floor.
The Scion ties into all of this with the Luminary, her second new Ascendancy class in six months. The Luminary’s Noble Blood passive allows her to permanently hire any Mercenary found in Wraeclast, with up to three on the payroll at once, two in reserve and one active in combat. Permanently hired Mercenaries can be re-equipped freely, and while they can’t use Unique Items by default, dedicated passives unlock specific Unique types, with Legendary Arms rewarding Mercenaries stacked with multiple Uniques. Other passives pick a direction for the relationship, as Oath of Fealty and Golden Glory empower your Mercenary through your Link skills, while Loyal Bodyguard and Bestowed Knighthood turn them into your protector and enhance their Auras.
Abyss, Legion, and Talisman Reworks
Abyss gets the most extensive rework of the returning mechanics, pulling back many of the improvements introduced in Path of Exile 2‘s Rise of the Abyssal. Instead of chasing a winding crack across the map, you’ll now find abyssal pits already open and corrupting nearby enemies. Killing those enemies feeds their souls into the pit until Kulemak’s legion spills out in a faster-paced fight with improved audio and visual feedback. No more backtracking. The PoE 1 versions of these monsters use different skills than their PoE 2 counterparts, though, so don’t expect the encounters to play out the same.
Abyss also becomes the exclusive source of Abyssal Jewels and Stygian Vises, mirroring what GGG did with Delve and Fossils last release, and it gains a refreshed Atlas Passive Tree, new Scarabs, and an all-new Pinnacle Boss with exclusive Unique rewards. The boss comes with a deliberately mysterious method of discovery that the stream teased with nothing more than a cryptic eyeball.
Legion’s rework centers on a new exclusive reward called Vestigial Unique Items, with Incubators removed entirely to make room. Legion Generals in Maps can now drop Enshrouding Crystals, which get applied to a Unique armor piece and carried into the Domain of Timeless Conflict, where a giant crystal now dominates the arena. Place your enshrouded item inside, kill monsters until the crystal fractures, and out comes a different Unique bearing a Vestigial Implicit Modifier carried over from the original. The stream’s example turned a Shaper’s Touch into a Maligaro’s Virtuosity that kept a trace of the source item’s power.
Legion also picks up a round of quality-of-life changes. Encounters now start automatically once enough key enemies are freed, Splinters drop in larger stacks to cut down on clicking, and Unrelenting Timeless Emblems are removed with regular Emblems absorbing many of their effects, making the Domain harder but more rewarding. A redesigned tracker charges up crystals to show reward progress instead of flooding your screen with icons.
Talismans round out the reworks after years of what GGG openly admits was neglect, becoming exclusive Bestiary rewards with real crafting potential. Every red beast has a chance to drop a Talisman specific to that beast, like the Craicic Croaker’s Croaker Talisman. They no longer drop Corrupted, making them far easier to craft, and their special modifiers are now enchantments rather than implicits, meaning they compete with Blight Anointments and can be significantly more powerful. Talisman Unique Items have all been improved and can drop from any Bestiary boss, including a new take on Eyes of the Greatwolf.
Atlas Anomalies
Zana’s ongoing destabilization of the Atlas manifests in a new endgame system called Atlas Anomalies, strange locations that can appear after completing Maps influenced by Voidstones. Anomalies don’t require a Map item to enter, aren’t affected by your Atlas Skill Tree or fragments, and can often be revisited until their rewards are claimed, so there’s no pressure to save them for the perfect moment. Each is tied to a specific Atlas quadrant, which GGG says may influence your overall Atlas strategy.
The stream showed a healthy range of examples, starting with the Manor Foyer, where Cadiro Perandus returns to offer valuable items in exchange for Gold, with each rejected offer replaced by a pricier and hopefully better one that waits patiently until you can afford it. Reflecting Mists and the Nameless Seer no longer spawn randomly in Maps and instead live in their own anomalies, with Scrying now handled through a new tradable Scrying Orb. Other anomalies offer a taste of league mechanics without full investment, including a fully revealed Heist Blueprint wing with random Rogues, a Logbook packed with Expedition content, and an overgrown version of the Sacred Grove. There’s also a Vaal altar hungry for a Headhunter, a statue that wants your Chaos Orbs, and a strongbox with a strange mechanism, with many more anomalies left for players to discover on their own.
Spellcaster Balance and Pacts
Spellcasters are the focus of this expansion’s balance pass, which GGG describes as one of its most significant improvements to spellcasting and early-game progression. Elemental archetypes are being differentiated, so Shadow’s physical spells like Ethereal Knives and Bladefall now carry much higher critical strike chance at the cost of damage, while pure lightning spells cast faster but cost more mana per second. The new Elemental Purist Keystone rewards specializing in a single element with stronger ailments, and the Assassin, Occultist, and Inquisitor each gain a new notable to shore up general spellcasting options.
Caster staves finally get some love too, rolling caster modifiers more often and at higher values, with Spell Gem Level modifiers appearing far more frequently than on one-handed caster weapons and new defensive Block and Spell Block options in the pool. A new skill called Mana-Charged Staff infuses your staff with Arcane energy, raising Block chance, reducing spell costs, and retaliating with a wave of Arcane lightning scaled off your maximum mana when you’re hit.
For endgame scaling, a new class of Exceptional Skill Gems called Pacts lets self-casters bargain with Beyond Demons and Lycia, granting dramatic new spell behaviors in exchange for demonic affliction debuffs. Pact of Beidat is aimed at multi-spell builds, Pact of Ghorr is built for damage over time, and Pacts of Lycia and K’tash are staying mysteries until launch.
Supporter Packs and Launch Details
Two new Supporter Pack series launch alongside the expansion, and they’re built around opposing forces. The Plague series includes seven exclusive cosmetics themed on corruption and disease, highlighted by the feinting Plague Rat pet, a Plaguebearer Back Attachment that spreads disease across the ground in towns, and a Plaguewraith Map Device that tracks your kills per Map by rarity and lets you pin the count like a leaderboard. The Remidus series answers with seven purification-themed cosmetics, including the supply-laden Medi-Rhoa pet, a Back Attachment that literally cleanses the Plague pack’s ground disease, and the Saints End Monastery Hideout, complete with a platform for diving into the purifying waters below. Every cosmetic is purely visual, each pack includes its full value in points, and all of the microtransactions work in Path of Exile 2 as well.
The full patch notes arrive today at 4:00 PM Pacific (7:00 PM Eastern), and anyone who watched today’s stream with Twitch Drops enabled can claim the Abyssal Soulshatter Rare Finisher Effect. Curse of the Allflame takes over from the current Mirage league when it launches on July 24.
