Path of Exile 2 Goes Free on 11 December. Here’s How to Grab the Free Cosmetics (and What’s Up With Twitch Drops)

Path of Exile 2 drops its Early Access tag and goes fully free-to-play on 11 December (US Pacific time) on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Grinding Gear Games, the West Auckland studio behind it, is giving away free cosmetics to anyone who signs up before launch. The community has already unlocked two of them.

Here’s what you get, what you need to do so you don’t miss out, and where Twitch drops fit in.

The free cosmetics: sign up, then confirm the email

• Where: pathofexile2.com/register. Pop in an email, then click the confirmation link GGG emails you. If you skip that step you’re not registered. GGG reminded people about it again on 20 October, so clearly heaps of you have skipped it.
• Already own Early Access? You still need to sign up. Buying Early Access doesn’t count.
• Deadline: 11 December PST. An earlier GGG post said 10 December, so don’t leave it to the last day.
• How you get them: once 1.0 is out, GGG emails everyone who registered a code to redeem on the Path of Exile website. It’s one code per account. Any email address works, and you can gift the code to a mate.
• Consoles: PlayStation and Xbox players can claim them too. Just link your console account to your Path of Exile account first.

What’s unlocked so far

The more people who sign up, the more cosmetics everyone gets. GGG says they’re exclusive to this promotion and won’t be sold in the store.

• Soulflame Crown (helmet attachment): everyone who signs up gets it. Unlocked
• Soulflame Weapon Effect at 1 million sign-ups. Unlocked on 22 September
• Soulflame Portal at 2 million
• Chained Chimera Wings at 3 million
• Scourgeborn Boar Pet at 4 million

So sign-ups have passed a million but haven’t hit two million yet. GGG doesn’t publish a live count. On its own forum the players aren’t optimistic about 4 million either. One pointed out it’s several times the biggest player count PoE has ever had for a season.

Twitch drops: nothing live right now

There’s no Path of Exile 2 Twitch drop running at the moment, so ignore anyone flogging “drop codes”. There are a couple coming up worth watching for:

• ExileCon 2026, 7 to 8 November in Auckland. GGG has confirmed “new Twitch Drops” for the event and says details are coming in the next few weeks. The free livestream starts at 9am NZDT on Saturday 7 November on twitch.tv/pathofexile, and the keynote is at 10am. That’s 7am in Sydney and Melbourne.
• The 1.0 launch. Not announced yet. But GGG has run drops for pretty much every major launch, including the Blade of the Champion pet for 2 hours of watching during Forbidden Rites in September, so we’d be surprised if launch week went without.

Do this now so you’re ready: link your Path of Exile account to Twitch at pathofexile.com/my-account/twitch. If you play on a sub-account, make sure it’s the one linked. When a drop is earned, you have to claim it in your Twitch inventory before the campaign ends, or it’s gone. Also worth knowing: the last drop pet wasn’t exclusive and is headed to the store later. Watch for the stream, not the pet.

What’s in 1.0

The headline is the Duelist, PoE2’s first sword-and-shield class, revealed with a trailer at gamescom Opening Night Live in August. Swords come with it. Reports from that reveal also say the final two campaign acts arrive with 1.0, finishing the story. ExileCon in November is where we expect the full rundown.

Right now about 10,000 people are playing on Steam, and its overall Steam rating is “Mostly Positive” (75% of over 227,000 reviews). Early Access still costs NZ$51.39 on Steam, so unless you’re desperate to play now, you can wait seven weeks and get it free.

Our take

Let’s be honest about what this is: a mailing list sign-up with some shiny bits as the carrot. GGG says your email goes to its mail provider Brevo, and it promises the updates are about ExileCon and 1.0 and nothing else. But it costs nothing. Any email works and you can gift the code. Two free cosmetics just for clicking a link is a good deal by PoE standards, where store effects aren’t cheap. Do it.

The 4 million target is a different story. It looks set up to be missed, and we’d like GGG to show a live counter so people know how close it is. Still, a Kiwi studio is taking one of the biggest ARPGs in the world free-to-play, with its own convention in Auckland four weeks before launch. That’s a pretty big month for NZ gaming.

Are you jumping in at 1.0? And which class: Duelist or something else? Tell us in the comments or come round up a party in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Path of Exile on X: sign up and unlock exclusive rewards (19 Oct)
• GGG: Full Release Registration, Sign Up and Unlock Exclusive Rewards (20 Oct)
• GGG: Full Release Registration FAQ
• GGG: New Reward Unlocked (Soulflame Weapon Effect, 22 Sept)
• GGG: Path of Exile 2 Fully Releases on December 11
• GGG: One Month until ExileCon 2026 (stream times, Twitch drops)
• GGG: Forbidden Rites Twitch drop (Blade of the Champion pet)
• Maxroll: Path of Exile 2 1.0 to launch December 11th
• Steam: Path of Exile 2 (price, reviews and players, checked 20 October)