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Shacknews E6 2022: Path of Exile Uber Boss deep dive and remembering ExileCon

There's a lot to talk about with Path of Exile and the Grinding Gear Games team has come to Shacknews E6 to talk about the past (ExileCon) and present (Sentinel) of the free-to-play action game.

Ozzie Mejia

June 14, 2022 3:00 PM

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Path of Exile has been a consistent hit among not only fans of dungeon crawlers, but also the Shacknews community. Grinding Gear Games' long running free-to-play action RPG has continued to grow in both scope and popularity over the last decade. The game is marching towards a new sequel, but continues to add brand new content on a regular basis. With Path of Exile continuing to engage thousands of players on a daily basis, it felt right to invite the GGG crew to E6 and talk to them about the game's most recent update.

Shacknews E6 2022: Path of Exile Uber Boss deep dive and remembering ExileCon

For Shacknews E6 2022, we have a very special two-pronged interview with the Grinding Gear team. We talk to Grinding Gear CEO Chris Wilson about a much simpler time in gaming, before COVID-19 changed everybody's lives, and we discuss 2019's ExileCon. We talk about how the team prepared to throw its own convention, what it meant for Path of Exile, the challenges that went into making it happen, and what potentially could have happened had the COVID-19 pandemic started a few months earlier and thrown everything into chaos.

We also spoke with lead game designer Rory Rackham about the Sentinel update. Specifically, we go into the design and creation of some of the update's major Uber Bosses. We discuss their vanilla counterparts, the steps in their design (both visually and from a gameplay standpoint), and how the team went about putting together their Uber versions for the Sentinel league.

As a special treat, in addition to the interview we conducted with the team for E6, Grinding Gear has also offered up some concept art for some of the bosses discussed today.

Shacknews E6 is happening all this week from June 14-17. Expect to see more features like this one, as well as developer interviews, live music performances, and a special indie showcase presentation. Be sure to head over to the Shacknews Twitch channel to see everything live. If you can't watch on Twitch, you can find our full slate of programming on demand from the Shacknews YouTube channel.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?