Path of Exile faces an epic Betrayal

You’ve just emerged from the Azurite Mine, bloody and laden with loot. You’re ready to sell the treasures from your latest delve, and you get ready to use a scroll to teleport you to a nearby town … ignorant that betrayal is waiting around the corner.
Welcome to Path of Exile: Betrayal, the next expansion for Grinding Gear Games’ online action-role-playing game. The update is live now on PC, and it’ll hit Xbox One on Monday. Look for it in the future when the New Zealand studio launches Path of Exile on PlayStation 4 (it’s been delayed).

Path of Exile has been a success for Grinding Gear Games. The online take on Diablo’s loot-based action-RPG continues to grow since its 2013 debut on PC. And it’s preparing for a new audience on PlayStation 4. This is part of why Tencent bought a majority stake in Grinding Gear in May.

Betrayal centers on your investigation of the Immortal Syndicate, a mysterious group. You working with Jun Ortoi, who’s a member of the Order of the Djinn. They’re concerned that the Immortal Syndicate has figured out a way to bring back the dead … without them being undead. As you investigate their 18 members, you assemble a police-like board of suspects (you may even interrogate them if you capture them). It brings a new element to Path of Exile that goes beyond killing foes, finding loot, and modding your equipment.
“She helps you infiltrate the Immortal Syndicate, a mysterious criminal faction. You help her to manipulate their ranks, reveal the identities of their members, uncover their safehouses and take down their mastermind,” a Grinding Gears rep said.
Betrayal has some other features as well:

• Veiled items: Syndicate members drop new items with Veiled Modifiers, which Jun can reveal. As you uncover these, you can craft the mods on other items start leveling-up more powerful versions of these properties.
• You’ve got new Forsaken Masters to aid you — the old group’s vanished (and good riddance, as many players felt that expansion was Path of Exile’s worst). Now, your Masters include Jun and Niko, the crazed miner from Delve.
• Streamlined Mastercrafting: Individual options when you complete specific content, like an Incursion room or a Delve encounter. Grinding Gear revamped every aspect.
• Better Hideout system. You can load and save these and share with all players, across all leagues.
• The Atlas of Worlds has four new maps.
• New skills and items: This expansion introduces or revamps 10 skills for three core character archetypes, and it has 15 new unique items (many carry Veiled mods). It also have five new Divination Cards from community members.