Diablo’s biggest rival has convinced me to give it a second chance when it leaves early access later this year on Xbox, thanks to its amazing new class

During Gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live, we got a new trailer for the popular Diablo-like ARPG, Path of Exile 2, showcasing a new Duelist class and the long-awaited addition of the Sword weapon type (which has been absent since the game’s early access launch on December 4, 2024).

The trailer also confirmed that the game will be leaving early access and launch its full 1.0 version that’s free-to-play on December 11, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

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Then, a day afterwards, Path of Exile 2’s developer/publisher, Grinding Gear Games, released an extended gameplay overview video.

It covered the many insane abilities of the Duelist class and Sword weapon, what kind of endgame builds you can make with them, and a new ‘Forbidden Rites’ Event League to keep players busy until the release of the game’s 1.0 launch.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Duelist class coming soon to Path of Exile 2.

The Duelist is a melee-focused class designed to cleave enemies with one-handed or two-handed swords through a series of lightning-fast slashes and parry incoming attacks to catch enemies off guard.

The Duelist’s main game plan revolves around slicing enemies with basic attacks while transitioning into combat stances to perform modified versions of your attacks with area-of-effect or status effects like Bleed to drain enemies’ life away.

Other notable abilities include creating sand discs to cleave groups of enemies, sand drills to pierce single targets, blasting blood waves to bleed enemies to death, dash attacks to close distances, summoning swords out of the ground that explode, augmenting your attacks with electricity, turning your two-handed sword into a giant greatsword that can split the earth in two, and much more.

When combining these abilities, the Duelist can become a literal whirlwind of destruction as they decimate hordes of enemies with sand discs before beheading bosses with a magically-empowered greatsword the size of a car, and that’s just its basic gameplay loop.

Once you start acquiring endgame gear and abilities for the Duelist class, they can turn entire rooms into meat grinders where not even the toughest enemies will survive being melted by non-stop sand discs, exploding swords, bleed effects, lightning bolts, and other insane abilities, as demonstrated in the gameplay overview video.

What’s more is that all this carnage and mayhem can be done with just the base Duelist class alone, before being upgraded into its Ascendancy subclasses, of which the Duelist will have two.

However, details on the Duelist’s Ascendancy subclasses will be revealed at Exile Con on November 7, 2026.

Windows Central’s take

I tried Path of Exile 2 a couple of times last year, but I could never seem to get into it for long before moving on to something else. However, with the addition of the Duelist class and Sword weapon type, my interest in the game has been renewed because they look so dang cool.

The classic sword & shield playstyle has always been my favorite in action-RPGs, and Path of Exile 2’s take on it looks nuts, what with being able to shower the screen with exploding swords, parrying boss attacks to stagger them, and briefly channelling Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII by cleaving enemies with a Buster Sword-sized Greatsword.

If this is what the base form of Duelist can do, then I can’t imagine how destructive the class will get when it unlocks its Ascendancy subclasses, one of which looks to be a Paladin subclass.

In short, this game is now on my wishlist, and I can’t wait to play the full version of Path of Exile 2 when it launches on December 11, 2026.

In the meantime, Path of Exile 2 will keep fans busy with a new ‘Forbidden Rites’ Event League starting on September 4, 2026, which will feature eight new challenges, exclusive rewards, a major overhaul to the Trial of Chaos, and many more changes to endgame systems.

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