Path of Exile 2 players are deleting their max-level characters – to make you stronger

What would it take for you to delete a level 100 Path of Exile 2 character? Reaching the maximum rank in the action RPG is a true labor of love and effort; the result of potentially hundreds of hours of hard graft. Would you destroy all of that simply to make space in your roster? Perhaps for a special, rare piece of loot? What about if doing so made everyone else playing the game stronger? Astonishingly, Grinding Gear Games has introduced exactly that last proposition into PoE 2 Return of the Ancients, and a few bold adventurers have already taken the dev up on its offer.

At the center of GGG’s massive endgame expansion in the Path of Exile 2 0.5 update is a vast fortress that acts as the new centerpiece of the Atlas map. It’s where you go to pursue one of the many new post-campaign questlines, unlocking points for the passive tree that boosts your endgame efficiency, and ultimately leading you to the game’s pinnacle boss battles. At the very heart of the fortress is the Origin Tower, and behind that, the Site of the Chosen. This is where our sacrifice takes place.

Ever since players first discovered the Site of the Chosen, speculation about what it might entail has been rife, with visitors simply told they were unworthy of entering the chamber at its apex. A week since the league began, we have our answer. By approaching the monolith with a character at level 100, you’re offered the chance to go inside. “Your strength is unquestioned. Your resolve, unbreakable. Are you ready, Martyr?” Then, in no uncertain terms, a warning: “This will permanently destroy your character.”

Stepping up to test this was Souaib ‘cArn’ Hanaf, who you might remember as the first player to hit level 100 in Diablo 4 hardcore mode, only to die to a disconnect. He switched to his first max-level PoE 2 character, a Warrior from PoE 2’s original league. On it, cArn was the third in the world to hit the cap as a solo self-found player, meaning he had to find all his gear himself with no option to trade. There’s a reluctance in his voice: “I like this character,” he says. “32 days of 0.1 Warrior – no checkpoints, no sprint, no movespeed.”

Then, after much thought, cArn clicks the button, choosing not to unequip any of his final gear in an attempt to save it – this needs to be a proper send-off, after all. His character steps forward into the cylindrical chamber, which descends into the floor in a cloud of mist. The screen fades to white. Then, it’s done: the character is still present on the menu, but listed in grayscale, and they cannot be used. Additionally, their name is now enshrined on that league’s ladder on the Path of Exile 2 website: the “Martyr of the First Edict.”

What does this mean for everyone else? Head to that same location, the Site of the Chosen, and you’ll find a mysterious new orb, promising to let you “Claim a mote of the Martyr’s power.” Click it, and you’ll earn a bonus passive skill point, completely for free. Effectively, cArn’s sacrifice has made any future character created in the standard solo self-found league a small amount stronger than they could have been before.

For the current league, Runes of Aldur, a player by the name of ‘ResurrectGodAura’ – the first and so far only person to reach level 100 in the ongoing season – has made the ultimate sacrifice. That means if you’re able to get to the Site of the Chosen, you can grab that bonus passive point right now. If you chose to play in hardcore or solo self-found, you’ll have to wait until someone follows suit there, because no-one has hit max rank in those more punishing modes since the season started. Perhaps, if you’re already close, you could become that Martyr yourself.

It’s an extremely cool mechanic, and after congratulating cArn on his successful martyrdom, Grinding Gear Games teases that “there are still so many secrets waiting to be discovered in Return of the Ancients.” Given just how large the update is, I suspect it’ll be a long time before we find them all, but the community has already uncovered several exciting ones, which have been collated by PoE YouTuber Daniel ‘ZiggyD’ Coutts-Smith.

Veterans of the first Path of Exile might know the powerful unique ring The Taming, which confers mastery over the elements. YouTuber ‘Travic’ shared how this is made in PoE 2: it still requires the combination of the three two-stone rings of Berek, but now you must uncover a secret altar deep in the Azmerian Ranges to forge them together.

In similar fashion comes Loreweave, a body armor that’s earned in PoE 1 by trading in an inventory-filling 60 unique rings at once. In Return of the Ancients, you must first uncover a special recipe from the ocean-crossing endgame Expedition mode. This enables Kalguuran smith Dannig to offer a custom crafting menu. This is where you build Loreweave in PoE 2, but it appears to have a much greater variance on the possible modifiers it can bear. It’s likely people will be testing what’s possible here for a long while to come.

The secrets keep coming. Take the ‘Flesh Flower’ passive on the Breach passive tree and you can fit a total of 60 Breach rings upon the Genesis Tree’s sinister fingers, creating Grasping Mail, a body piece boasting armor, evasion, and energy shield. Pursue the Keepers of the Flame questline as a Monk in the Acolyte of Chayula ascendancy, and you’ll now be presented with the option to become an even more powerful Archon of Chayula. I won’t spoil how this happens, but safe to say it’s rather grisly.

Perhaps you’re such a master buildcrafter that you’ve decided that navigating the Path of Exile 2 passive skill tree has become too blasé. Answering your call, GGG has introduced hidden notables. These don’t appear unless you’ve already taken all the prerequisite passive nodes – as just one example, Monks that unlock ‘First Teachings of the Keeper’ and ‘First Principle of the Hollow’ will discover ‘The Hollowkeeper,’ which cuts the effect of Curses and non-damaging Ailments against you.

We’re just one week into Path of Exile 2’s new league, and players have already uncovered so many secrets and tricks. Yet it feels as though we’ve barely scratched the surface, and the message from Grinding Gear Games would appear to confirm that to be the case. Keep on blasting out there – I can’t wait to see what we find next.