Lake of Kalandra expansion has you fight for loot

There’s a unique item in Path of Exile that has left fans with a particular question. The Mirror of Kalandra is a rare piece of currency, allowing players to create a mirrored copy of an item — as said in its description. But who is Kalandra, the name of the person attached to the Mirror? That’s a question developer Grinding Gear Games will answer in the next Path of Exile expansion, Lake of Kalandra. However, the studio won’t stop with relieving you of that burning question. Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra brings a new area with creatures to fight, loot to gather, changes to the endgame, and more.

The expansion runs the gamut of what to expect from the studio and the game. More items are on the way, a class is getting balanced, the endgame is getting improved once more, and there’ll be new skill and support gems to play with. The expansion also revamps some rare beasts. As usual, there’s just too much the expansion will bring to Path of Exile, so I’ll sum up Lake of Kalandra as best as I can.

The standout is, of course, the new Challenge League. Lake of Kalandra will allow you to go to the mysterious, eponymous region to fight “reflections of Wraeclast” — reflected monsters of the PoE world. You can customize the Lake encounters, changing difficulty and more, using Mirrored Tablets you find while exploring the world.

These Tablets let you make choices on what kind of encounters you want when you visit the Lake. Later, you can even choose to exile, skip, or reroll choices. The endgame will let you save a customized Tablet as an item, which you can carry with you and trade.

Mirror, mirror

Completing a challenge lets you pick an item to “reflect.” By that, I mean placing an item in a box will mirror (thematic) its stats, reversing them completely. A ring that offers +135 Life will be reflected as the same ring with -135 Life, and so on. You can pick which item to take with you on your journey. It’s an interesting concept, and I can see players keeping awful items for the chance of turning them into something useful for their build.

GGG’s Chris Wilson didn’t offer much on the story behind the Lake of Kalandra story during the livestream today. However, playing the league should shed some light on the mysterious Kalandra, who may be some kind of bird person, as well as their importance in the overall PoE story.

Lake of Kalandra – endgame and Trickster changes

Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra offers some improvements to endgame and one particular problem class. As mentioned by Wilson, the Trickster Ascendancy Class hasn’t been working. The expansion reworks the class to improve defenses and give you the advantage with manipulating speed. The “One Step Ahead” option in the Ascendancy will slow down enemies around you and give you a speed boost that can’t be lowered. There’s more to the rework, covering “thematically appropriate defenses,” which you can check out in the livestream video.

In the endgame, you will be able to find Memory items. These items contain the memories of some key NPCs, such as Kirac, Niko, or Alva. Delving in, you can to experience what these characters went through in the past. You apply the memory to a completed map you have on the Atlas. A path will form, leading to nearby maps for you to explore. As expected, these memories will bring tough challenges and plenty of rewards. You can even talk to the NPCs about these memories in new dialogue options.



A gem of a time

There’s a lot more to the Path of Exile Lake of Kalandra expansion. The livestream brought a dizzying amount of information for players to slowly comb through. For more, such as the new gems and what they do, check out the livestream and take a trip to the website.

In other Path of Exile news, the sequel will have a closed beta soon. The date for the beta is going to be revealed during ExileCon 2023 on the weekend of July 29. It’ll also be playable at the show. So, yes PoE fans, the sequel is on its way soon. But there’s still going to be a lengthy wait.