PoE 2 Patch 0.5.5 Review: Forbidden Rites Winners and Losers

PoE 2 patch 0.5.5 went live on September 4, 2026 with the Forbidden Rites event league, and four follow-up patches later the game sits on version 0.5.5e. This review was checked in October 2026. It is an unusual update: a new league and a rebuilt Trial of Chaos, but not one balance change to skills or ascendancies. With the 1.0 release dated December 11, it is best read as the bridge between early access and launch.

New here? Start with this

A content update in Path of Exile 2 usually brings a new league, meaning a fresh economy where everyone starts from nothing. Forbidden Rites is that league. GGG's FAQ confirms it is a full league with its own challenges, that you join by picking it on the character screen, and that it runs until 1.0.

Two things newcomers ask most:

• Is the Duelist playable? No. The FAQ states the Duelist arrives on December 11 with 1.0.
• Did the older league end? No. Runes of Aldur, the league from May's 0.5.0 update, keeps running in parallel and also ends at 1.0.

If you are deciding whether to start now or wait: the game is still paid early access today and becomes free-to-play at launch.

What the patch changed

The league. Every campaign area contains a Ritual that pays levelling gear and currency. Twice per Act and once per Interlude, a cluster of Rituals sits on area bosses, and each defeated boss joins the next Ritual in the chain. In the endgame, Ritual can offer Sacred Blooms, which add the Viridian Wildwood to a cluster of maps. Eight challenges award a footprint effect, a finisher effect, a pet and a level-up effect at two, four, six and eight completions.

Trial of Chaos. The biggest mechanical change. You can leave a run and resume from the same room. Each room ends with a reward chest, so dying no longer costs everything. Rewards are now only currency and Soul Cores. After ten rooms you may continue twice more with carried-over modifiers. Modifiers show real values and were made less punishing at low tiers, elevators and doors were sped up, and the Uxmal fight got a new arena.

Soul Cores. Seventeen new cores, and buffs to many existing ones. Several now carry a Limit of 1.

Runes of Aldur goes core. Farrow, Dannig and Expedition content is available on the Atlas in every league, Standard included, and Expedition Tablets now drop outside the Runes of Aldur league.

Endgame. Large Abyssal Ravines appear on the Atlas. One repeatable Arbiter of Divinity kill now completes the whole Precursor Fortress. Both Arbiters lost their blanket elemental resistances in favour of one resistance and one vulnerability each.

No balance pass. Maxroll's summary of the reveal stream reports that GGG cited a lack of development time and moved balancing to the 1.0 patch.

Who wins

• Players with limited time. A Trial of Chaos you can pause is a different activity from one that held you for a full run.
• Party players. Party members now earn their own Ritual Tribute with their own reward selection.
• Standard players. They receive the Runes of Aldur content that had been disabled there since May.
• Characters short on Atlas points. The Fortress shortcut removes most of the repeat Arbiter kills.
• Cold and fire bossers. The Arbiter of Ash is now vulnerable to cold and the Arbiter of Divinity to fire.
• Low-spec machines. 0.5.5e added a Texture Quality setting for low VRAM.

Who loses

• Azmeri Spirit chaining. Released spirits now only have a chance to manifest again, and 0.5.5d fixed a bug that had made that chance higher than intended.
• Delirium fog strategies. Grand Mirrors spread fog to 10 maps (previously up to 16 in high tiers), and pack counts stop scaling beyond 100% Deliriousness.
• Breach rare farmers. Stabilised Breaches release rares in waves of five, and the related tablet modifier was cut to 1-2 extra rares.
• Anyone waiting for nerfs or buffs. Skill and ascendancy numbers carried over untouched from the Runes of Aldur patches. On poe.ninja, Gemling Legionnaire alone accounts for 35.1% of indexed softcore Forbidden Rites characters.
• Kalguuran-skill starters in the new league. Without a Remnant in every zone, those gems arrive later in a Forbidden Rites campaign.

The follow-up patches

• 0.5.5b: fixed Expedition not spawning naturally in the endgame and raised drop rates of Expedition, Temple and Delirium Tablets.
• 0.5.5c: fixed progression blockers in the Legacy of the Precursors questline and added an identify option at Balbala in the Trial of the Sekhemas.
• 0.5.5d: the Azmeri fix above, plus clearer feedback when a tablet cannot be applied.
• 0.5.5e: the texture setting, a Ritual start bug and slow-loading areas.

How it landed

Reception on the official forum is split. A long-running feedback thread calls the event a dead league; replies in the same thread point out that the game is in early access with a major patch behind it and the full release weeks away. The ladder index is one neutral data point: poe.ninja lists 124,087 softcore Forbidden Rites characters against 124,240 for Runes of Aldur. Those are indexed ladder characters, not player counts, and the index may well be capped, so the fair reading is modest: five weeks in, the event ladder is as full as the one for a league that opened in May.

What comes next

ExileCon 2026 takes place on November 7 and 8 New Zealand time, with the keynote streamed at 1 PM PST on November 6. GGG has confirmed 1.0 for December 11 as a free-to-play release with the Duelist. Players who register on the official site receive at least two cosmetic effects after launch, with three more community milestones open. The release trailer from the official Path of Exile channel is below.

What is not confirmed matters as much. Game director Jonathan Rogers told Eurogamer in the spring that not all twelve planned classes need to be in 1.0. The description of Talkative Tri's recent round-up video also flags that Acts 5 and 6 have not been confirmed for launch day.

For veterans

• Check your sockets. The Limit of 1 applies to several core types, including Jiquani, Opiloti, Puhuarte, Ticaba, Topotante, Tzamoto, Xopec and Zalatl. In exchange their values rose, for example Topotante's weapon penetration from 15% to 25%.
• Atlas Master options moved. Doryani's Refined Formula was replaced by Archaic Corruption, which corrupts monsters released from Essences. The Deadliest Hunt and Pandora's Box passives lost their spirit-release effects.
• Trialmaster drops. He no longer drops Magic Inscribed Ultimatums; the double-or-nothing wager moved into the continue option.
• Aldur's Saga cannot be obtained outside the Runes of Aldur league, though its modifiers can appear on Grand Expeditions.
• Quest version changed. Killing the Arbiter of Divinity with the quest Origin Core no longer completes a Fortress section; only the non-quest version counts.

Sources

• GGG: Content Update 0.5.5 patch notes
• GGG: Path of Exile 2: Forbidden Rites FAQ
• GGG: 0.5.5 Event League and Duelist Deep Dive
• GGG: 0.5.5b patch notes
• GGG: 0.5.5c patch notes
• GGG: 0.5.5d patch notes
• GGG: 0.5.5e patch notes
• GGG: Path of Exile 2 Fully Releases on December 11
• GGG: One Month until ExileCon 2026
• GGG: Full Release Registration - New Reward Unlocked
• GGG: Free Weekend and Early Access Supporter Pack
• Maxroll: 0.5.5 Forbidden Rites event launch date and endgame changes
• Maxroll: 0.5.5 Forbidden Rites patch notes summary
• Eurogamer: Path of Exile 2 aims for a full 1.0 release this year, but not all classes will make it
• poe.ninja: Path of Exile 2 builds index
• Path of Exile (YouTube): Path of Exile 2 Full Release trailer
• Talkative Tri (YouTube): Path of Exile 2 1.0: What's Actually Confirmed?
• Path of Exile forum: Dead "league" (feedback thread)