Path of Exile: Ascendancy is tentatively set to go live on March 4, a date that's not carved in stone but “pretty solid,” the studio said. At the same time, the poe trade currency-running Talisman challenge leagues will come to an end, and a new one will begin. Grinding Gear is keeping details about the upcoming league a closely guarded secret, but the word on the street (wink, wink) is that it will be themed to tie in with the Ascendancy expansion.

Path of Exile's latest expansion is out now, and completely changes the way that the ARPG's endgame works. poe items for trade adds 32 new maps to battle through, each of which has a boss at the end, as well as four powerful Elder Guardians that you'll have to defeat before you reach the new bid bad: the Elder.

Before the update you fought through randomly generated maps to reach the Shaper, a Cthulhu-looking boss. Now, the Shaper and the Elder are at war, trying to separately spread their taint across the map. These taints affect the way maps look and feel: the Elder's minions will literally suck the colour out of the world, weakening your character if they're nearby, for example.

By choosing a particular path you'll be able to control the spread of both bosses, shepherding them towards particular maps, or fighting back against the taint of one in particular, allowing the other to take over.