It wasn’t that long ago, this past March in fact, that Grinding Gear Games released the Vaal expansion which added corrupted items and special “rifts” that led to new uber-bosses. It was a pretty impressive addition to the new game, considering it still remained free and without strings. Well, lace up your superior leather boots and slot a few support gems into your weapons, because the ink isn’t even dry on our new build FAQs and a new expansion is just around the corner.

This one, titled “Forsaken Masters”, centers around a group of seven heroes who stood against Dominus and now lurk the island and are hoping to find brave souls to pass their knowledge onto. These masters, two of which have been revealed on the official Forsaken Masters forum announcement, will randomly appear within your game and issue you special quests. Once you complete enough quests for a particular master, you are rewarded with various bonus features that you wouldn’t have obtained otherwise. Features like player housing in the form of special hideouts, an all new crafting shop with high level recipes, new item modifiers and several new skill gems to benefit from.

Though I only play standard league Path of Exile myself, there are several new additions to the competitive side of the game as well. I’ll let the developers explain that:

With the release of Forsaken Masters, we’re starting a pair of new Challenge Leagues – Rampage and Beyond. These leagues are self-contained economies and provide an opportunity for players to demonstrate their mastery of Path of Exile.

The new leagues contain eight difficult challenges. Players who complete five of these challenges will be rewarded with an exclusive microtransaction effect. Completing all eight challenges rewards you with another, different, exclusive microtransaction effect. The first 50 players to complete all of the challenges will receive a Rampage/Beyond t-shirt.

These challenge leagues last for three months. We’ll be starting a second set of challenge leagues in December.

Path of Exile is a game that just simply won’t stay off my hard drive no matter how thoroughly I believe I’ve conquered its mountain of content. If you’re looking for new challenges to overcome and feel like stepping back into the Wraeclast, then now is a good time to do so. The expansion is due out this August 20th, which makes this the perfect way to end the summer if you ask me.

If only they would stop resetting the passive skill tree…