The free-to-play, top-down action-RPG Path of Exile has received regular updates and expansions since its release on PCs in late 2013. This is part of why it has earned a massive, ardent fan base: it’s backed by developers who work tirelessly to hone the player experience expansion by expansion while also introducing new content. Its main strengths are in developer Grinding Gear Games’ willingness to experiment; every expansion tends to introduce a completely new system that strives to extend beyond the typical ARPG conventions of grinding and looting ad nauseam.
Path of Exile: Synthesis, the game’s newest expansion, does just that. Its most compelling new feature is a build-your-own-dungeon metagame that involves piecing together the recovered memories of a mysterious figure named Cavas. It also features a new mechanic for synthesizing special items, the logic of which is kept a mystery for players to solve.
Synthesis is an apt name for the expansion in a number of ways. “‘Synthesis’ means the creation or fabrication of something,” explained Grinding Gear Games’ managing director, Chris Wilson. The idea of synthesis is relevant to both the story and new mechanics. “In the Synthesis expansion, the player has expanded opportunities for synthesizing both game world areas and items.”
The central narrative conceit behind the expansion is as follows: The player meets Cavas, who Wilson describes as an important person in the history of Wraeclast (the continent to which the player is exiled at the beginning of the game). Wilson, however, declined to reveal much beyond that. “Players will find out his true identity as they play,” he insisted.
The player agrees to assist Cavas in recovering his lost memories, which involves accessing portals into Cavas’ memory fragments that are scattered across different world areas. As Cavas narrates each memory fragment, the player is tasked with “stabilizing” it before it decays, fighting through hordes of enemies in the process.
This is where things get interesting. Stabilized memory fragments can be pieced together in an area called “The Void,” which serves as a hub for Cavas’ recovered memories. Players begin at the Memory Nexus and use these fragments to forge pathways to distant memories, which might include special rewards, boss fights, or other objectives. This network of pathways is called the “Memory Map.”
As avid board game players, Grinding Gear Games’ development team drew inspiration from board game tiles while designing the layout of the Memory Map. “At the design meeting where we were working on how memories chain together, there was a Carcassonne set nearby, so we used the pieces to prototype how connections between areas could work,” Wilson said. “We progressed from that point to making our own Memory Map pieces to iterate on before we made a digital prototype.”
The result is a deeply satisfying metagame in which playable areas function as puzzle pieces. Each memory fragment decays over the course of a few rounds, so it’s important for players to think a few steps ahead when building out the Memory Map. The new system gives seasoned Path of Exile players a reason to revisit world areas while offering them a completely new challenge.
Cavas’ memories aren’t the only things in need of restoration. Throughout the game, players will now also stumble across “Fractured Items,” which are items that carry immutable modifiers. For the most part, these modifiers will be detrimental, and players will be hard-pressed to find a use for them on their own.
Players will also have access to a machine called the “Synthesizer,” which allows players to combine three Fractured Items and synthesize a new one. “This resultant item has special implicit mods that are based on the Fractured Items consumed,” Wilson said. “We aren't being specific about how these mods are calculated, because we want players to try to work out the process themselves, but it'll be clear that the better the input items are, the better the output will be.”
Of course, players might also stumble upon a Fractured Item that carries a beneficial modifier with no immediate drawbacks. In this instance, the item might actually present promising crafting opportunities. Either way, it’s smart for Grinding Gear Games to keep their cards close to their chest when it comes to describing this new system; it incentivizes players to experiment with their Fractured Items and use the results of each synthesis to further deduce the inner workings behind the process.
In addition to Cavas’ quest to find his lost memories and the advent of Fractured Items, Synthesis features a readjustment of the game’s spells, as well as the introduction of skills under two new spellcaster archetypes. The expansion also integrates everything from Path of Exile’s previous expansion, Betrayal, into the core game.
Even if you’ve never touched Path of Exile before, Wilson encourages you to join in on the action. “Path of Exile is an ever-evolving game that receives big updates every three months,” Wilson said. “Content is cycled in and out to make sure that the core game isn't too complex for new players to start out. There's never a time that is too late to try it out!”
Path of Exile: Synthesis was released for PC on March 8, 2019.