Path of Exile is coming down its final few expansions before the release of its long-awaited sequel. After over a decade of new expansions and leagues, the Grinding Gear Games team is not slowing down and is continuing to lay out some exciting new ideas. On Thursday, the team unveiled the dungeon crawler's next big expansion, Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur.

The Kalguuran pioneers need a place to settle down and build a new civilization. There's a grand vision of the town of Kingsmarch becoming a bustling trading hub, exchanging goods with the neighboring villages within Wraeclast. However, it's going to take some of those Wraeclast exiles to get the ball rolling. Players will deal with some familiar faces, including Dannig, Rog, Tujen, and Gwennen, who are returning from 2021's Expedition league.

Players will begin their journey by meeting Johan, the King's Hand, in Lioneye's Watch. He is there on behalf of the Kalguuran king to help ensure that Kingsmarch goes from a barren plot of land to a flourishing trade center. To help build Kingsmarch, players must seek out resources, like Crimson Iron, Orichalcum, Petrified Amber, Bismuth, and Verisium. It sounds simple, but enemy hordes are all attracted to these various resources for one reason or another. In order to mine these resources, players must eliminate the monsters surrounding them and they won't go down without a fight.

Of course, even if those monsters are cleared out, a labor force is needed to help mine these resources. Miners are available, but they'll want payment up front. Gold will drop throughout Wraeclast, which can be used to hire these miners' services. A recruiter named Raulf can assist with hiring workers, each with their own abilities and associated costs, just as soon as you have that Gold supply ready to go.

Mining resources takes a little while and is done in real-time. Fortunately, this time will pass regardless of whether the player is logged into Path of Exile or not. There are ways to accelerate this process and they can involve hiring more workers, as well as upgrading the Kingsmarch mining station with more advanced equipment.

After collecting resources, players can begin a new real-time city-building aspect of Path of Exile. Players must determine which structures can best help Kingsmarch move forward. As noted before, they can upgrade the mining station, but they can also build new stations for Smelters, Disenchanters, and Farmers to fill various functions that will speed up the village's growth. Once Kingsmarch has grown sufficiently, players can build a Harbour and begin trading with Kalguuran villages. An effective trading route will keep more resources coming along with some big in-game rewards. Be careful, though, because there's always risk of pirates, monsters, and environmental hazards when sending out trading ships, so be sure to have any shipments secured by hiring specialists.

Path of Exile's new settlement mechanic can also serve several other functions. The Kalguurans have sent over Isla, who veterans may remember from Path of Exile: Heist, to assist by providing Kaltuuran-modified Map Devices. This will allow players to send out certain workers to complete maps you may not have time to run. Meanwhile, Dannig can assist in running a Runesmithing Table, which opens the door to new crafting recipes and never-before-seen equipment. There's even a currency exchange, helpfully run by Faustus from the Heist league.

This isn't all that players can expect to see in Path of Exile's new update. Ascendancy classes are getting some of their biggest changes to date. The Warden is being added as a replacement to the Raider class and will allow players to specialize in elemental attacks, damage mitigation, and expertise in Tinctures, a new resource that can be found across the game. Meanwhile, the Gladiator has been reworked. It still focuses on Bleed and Block, but will now also sport skills that allow it to retaliate against attacking foes.

There's much more coming to Path of Exile that we couldn't cover here, but fortunately, the latest patch notes should have everything covered. The biggest thing to note is that the game is now fully optimized for current-gen hardware. Look for Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur to come to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on Friday, July 26.

This preview is based on a developer briefing held via Discord.