Path of Exile 3.29, Curse of the Allflame, is now the center of attention for the PoE1 community, and this page is being kept current as new information lands. Grinding Gear Games has locked in a two-stage schedule: a GGG Live broadcast that unpacks the full expansion, followed by a launch a little over a week later. Below is everything the studio has confirmed through official channels so far, covering the release window, the teaser clues about the league theme, the new Transfigured Skills already shown off, and the quality-of-life changes revealed ahead of the big reveal. Sections here will be filled out with confirmed patch notes details once the livestream airs.
Path of Exile 3.29 Release Date and GGG Live Reveal Schedule
Grinding Gear Games has set the reveal broadcast for July 16 at 1 PM PDT (July 17 for Australian time zones), streaming on the official twitch.tv/pathofexile channel. GGG Live is where the studio plans to walk through the full 3.29 expansion, the mechanics of the new challenge league, and the wider list of changes coming with the patch. Once the presentation wraps, Game Director Mark Roberts and Game Designer Octavian join host ZiggyD for a live Q&A session, taking questions directly from viewers. A Twitch Drops reward tied to watching the stream has also been confirmed, according to the official announcement on the Path of Exile forums.
Curse of the Allflame itself launches on July 24 at 1 PM PDT (July 25 in Australia), free to play on PC and consoles as with every previous challenge league. Players should note the gap between leagues this cycle: the current Mirage league (3.28) ends on July 20 at 3 PM PDT, a full four days before 3.29 goes live. That leaves a short window with no active challenge league running, so anyone racing to finish Mirage objectives needs to plan around the 20th rather than assuming a same-day handover into the new league.
Curse of the Allflame League Mechanic: What the Teaser Confirms So Far
GGG unveiled the league name and its first teaser trailer on July 5, and the footage leans heavily into a marine horror tone rather than the more mechanical or crafting-driven themes of recent leagues. The trailer shows a lone figure drifting in a small boat through total darkness while a massive, shadowy shape passes beneath the hull, accompanied by the line beneath the deep, an ancient curse awaits. Beyond that mood piece, GGG has not detailed the actual endgame mechanic, and full specifics stay under wraps until the July 16 stream.
The name itself ties back to existing lore. The Allflame is an item players already encounter early in the campaign, tied to Fairgraves and the Marooned Mariner quest in the Ship Graveyard area of Act 1. Community members have also floated a possible link between the Allflame and the Kalguuran storyline introduced with the Expedition expansion, though the specifics of that connection are inconsistently reported and not corroborated by official lore sources. That uncertainty is fueling most of the current speculation about a story connection tied to Fairgraves and the wider Allflame mythology, though GGG has not confirmed which of these threads the 3.29 story will actually follow.
Community discussion has also latched onto the possibility of a harbor or shipping-based mechanic in the spirit of Settlers of Kalguur, combined with Path of Exile's long-running fishing Easter egg finally becoming a full system. None of that is confirmed by GGG at this stage, and it should be treated strictly as fan speculation until the reveal stream lays out the actual mechanic.
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New Transfigured Skills, Tidebreaker Rework and Animate Guardian Overhaul
On July 6, GGG published a preview video introducing the first two Transfigured Skills confirmed for the patch. Holy Hammers of Spirals is a transfigured version of Holy Hammers, the skill introduced in the 3.28 Mirage league, and it consumes Power Charges to summon a hammer that spins outward into a spiraling area of effect, a pattern built for clearing dense packs in content like Legion, Delirium, Breach, and Expedition. It requires a mace, sceptre, or staff to use. Reap of Butchery takes a different route as a physical spell that builds Blood Charges and scales up its damage over time the longer a fight runs. GGG has stated that more Transfigured Skills will be shown during the July 16 broadcast, continuing the pattern of recent leagues where older skills without a variant finally receive one.
A separate preview covered quality-of-life changes rather than new skills. Tidebreaker, the two-handed unique mace, has been reworked to add extra elemental damage scaling tied to Brine Charges while keeping its existing reduced enemy stun threshold. Animate Guardian, long criticized for clunky gear management, is getting a dedicated equipment window that shows every item currently equipped on the minion, paired with an updated death behavior that lets it retain its gear on respawn similar to how Spectres already work. Alongside that, a new in-game tooltip system now explains mechanics such as Brine Charges, Endurance Charges, and specific item modifiers directly in the client, cutting down on how often players need to alt-tab to a wiki mid-run.
Return of the Ancestors and the Transition Out of Mirage League
Before 3.29 arrives, GGG is running a three-week event called Return of the Ancestors, built on top of the current Mirage league mechanic and active from June 25 through July 16, both at 3 PM PDT. It brings back the Trial of the Ancestors auto-battler system alongside the Phrecian Ascendancy classes and Tattoos from the original 2023 event, available across Standard, Hardcore, Solo Self-Found, and Hardcore Solo Self-Found, plus a Ruthless mode variant that uses the same Ascendancy classes. The event is not voided, meaning characters and items carry forward into their parent leagues once it ends, and any character migrating out has its Ascendancy points automatically respecced into one of the core Ascendancy classes.
Practically, this event is the bridge keeping the population engaged while Mirage winds down and the 3.29 reveal approaches, and it closes on the same day as the GGG Live broadcast, giving the community one final push of content right before attention shifts fully to Curse of the Allflame.
| Date (PDT) | Event |
|---|---|
| June 25, 2026, 3 PM | Return of the Ancestors event begins on Mirage |
| July 5, 2026 | Curse of the Allflame name and teaser trailer revealed |
| July 6, 2026 | First Transfigured Skills shown: Holy Hammers of Spirals, Reap of Butchery |
| July 16, 2026, 1 PM | GGG Live full reveal broadcast, followed by Q&A with Mark Roberts and Octavian |
| July 16, 2026, 3 PM | Return of the Ancestors event ends |
| July 20, 2026, 3 PM | Mirage League (3.28) ends |
| July 24, 2026, 1 PM | Curse of the Allflame (3.29) launches on PC and consoles |
| Feature | Category | Status |
|---|---|---|
| League name and marine horror theme | League Mechanic | Confirmed via teaser |
| Full league mechanic and endgame changes | Gameplay | Pending July 16 reveal |
| Holy Hammers of Spirals | Transfigured Skill | Confirmed |
| Reap of Butchery | Transfigured Skill | Confirmed |
| Additional Transfigured Skills | Skills | Teased, full list at reveal |
| Tidebreaker rework (Brine Charge scaling) | Items | Confirmed |
| Animate Guardian equipment window | Quality of Life | Confirmed |
| In-game mechanic tooltips | Quality of Life | Confirmed |
| Harbor, shipping, and fishing mechanics | League Mechanic | Community speculation only |
| Complete patch notes | Patch | Pending July 16 reveal |
Final Thoughts
Right now, Curse of the Allflame is defined more by its schedule and its quality-of-life groundwork than by its actual league mechanic. GGG has locked in the dates, shown two Transfigured Skills, reworked Tidebreaker, and fixed one of the community's longest-standing minion complaints with the new Animate Guardian interface, but the core hook of the league, the thing that decides whether this is a farming loop, a boss rush, or something built around the nautical theme in the trailer, is still locked behind the July 16 stream. That makes early build planning genuinely risky beyond safe, flexible league starters, since anything tied to a specific mechanic could shift once the full patch notes land. The most useful move before launch is watching GGG Live directly rather than relying on pre-reveal guesses, since the gap
