PoE2 Interview: Templar and Marauder Not in 1.0

On December 11, Path of Exile 2 leaves Early Access with two new classes, the Shadow and the Duelist. The Templar and the Marauder are not coming along. In this PoE2 interview, a roundtable published by PCGamesN on November 7, the game’s directors, Jonathan Rogers and Mark Roberts, explain what is holding them up and what they dare promise. Not much, and above all no date.

Templar and Marauder: “by next year”, and nothing more

According to PCGamesN, the Full Release leaves ten classes out of the twelve announced at the start. Rogers explains that the two missing ones were meant to arrive with 1.0 and that it is taking longer than planned. His only deadline fits in one sentence: “I would feel unhappy if we didn’t have them by next year, but we’ll see.”

For anyone waiting on the PoE2 Templar, this means one thing: nothing in 1.0, and a horizon of 2027 at best, phrased as a maybe. GGG has given no season, no league and no version. The official ExileCon thread only says the developer talks will be published later, again without a date. The answers given during the live Q&A have not been published in writing yet.

Another point comes out of the PoE2 interview: GGG has old prototypes of these classes. Rogers doubts they still make sense: “I don’t know whether that would even make sense in the world we’re now in.” PCGamesN adds that these tests date from before keyboard movement arrived. The work therefore partly restarts from zero.

The PoE2 Templar and the spellsword GGG has not pulled off yet

The Templar carries the most delicate ambition. Rogers: “I think the thing we haven’t yet succeeded at doing really is the spellsword, to actually truly mix attacks and spells.” A spellsword is a sword fighter who also casts spells, both serving the same build.

He sets the bar high: “I would feel like we have failed if we can’t succeed in getting that true merging.” According to PCGamesN, he sees the Druid as an attempt in that direction that lacks the right incentives: most players end up choosing pure shapeshifting or pure spells. The work on the Templar could also serve the Druid.

GGG has given no mechanic, no skill and no Ascendancy for the Templar. What we know comes down to a design goal, nothing more.

Marauder: the axe must do something unique

For the Marauder, PCGamesN reports that the planned new weapon type is the axe. The design question Rogers asks: “What’s the thing that’s unique about this weapon that only this weapon type can do?”

Again according to PCGamesN, GGG already has an answer but has not tested it much recently. The arrival of swords with the Duelist and of Traps with the Shadow show the method: each new weapon arrives with a class built around it.

What the PoE2 interview also says about the rest

Topic	What the directors say (PCGamesN, November 7)
Auto map-running	Rogers thinks this is what players will want most, and that GGG will have to add it in one form or another, “whether or not it relates to this system or another one”.
Factions	“We were very worried that everyone is going to pile into a single faction.”
League cadence	Roberts: “I am so looking forward to that cadence – stability on both [games].” PCGamesN reads this as a return to a four-month cycle.

On auto map-running, PCGamesN does not tie the remark to the launch league. The commanders of Conquerors of Wraeclast are therefore not presented as GGG’s answer: that is one possible reading, not a statement.

Roberts also slipped in a joke about a skeleton cosmetic for his Infernalist build, “which I will pay for personally, of course”.