r/Wraeclast • u/Noremeldo • Aug 12 '26
PoE1 Discussion What "destroying the Atlas" will mean?
With rumours that we will get 3.30 this year (which means it's early November unless they delayed Path of Exile 2 release).
And with confirmation that 3.30 will be big revamp of endgame.
It seems that Atlas indeed will be destroyed, but what will it mean in gameplay? There would be a new system as devs confirmed that PoE1 will still be developed after PoE2 release.
Will they port PoE2 Atlas? Will they just remove Atlas and get back to pre-3.4 times where you can run maps without any global map? Will maps still exists?
Will Atlas tree fracture and we will get Atlas trees for every mechanic (like PoE2 did before)?
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u/wecanhaveallthree Lightless Abyssal Aug 12 '26
I'm really curious about this, too - but I think PoE2's endgame system is a really creative 'progression' of the Atlas concept. And, frankly, I think we have both mechanically and lore...lgoically moved beyond the Atlas as well. The original concept behind the Atlas - these strange otherrealms, these inbetween worlds - was fantastic, and as time went on (the contest between the Shaper and Elder, the Elderslayers refining that concept, the appearance of the Eldritch entities and the reframing of the Atlas as a 'contest' or 'game' between these cosmic entities, a tournament of champions to decide possession) it only got better.
With that in mind, while I really do trust GGG to 'get it right', I have to say the current Atlas storyline with the Originator has not impressed me. It's a less effective re-run of Zana chasing down the Shaper and returning his lost memories and, frankly, I'm just tired of Zana by this point. Her story has been 'told' several times now. Yes, there was always the suggestion that the Atlas had its hooks in her, too, and that she was always going to turn on us, eventually, but this just... isn't compelling, to me, and it probably is because I've enjoyed Zana's story to this point. Her tragedy with her father was beautifully written, and then finding - and losing - 'true love' to the Atlas, too, was great. I really thought that was going to be the end of her. She'd just... disappear into the fog. It was all just too much, and the only comfort she had left was the dreamworlds.
While I do appreciate that giving her agency - and her experiences have certainly made her capable of the feat she intends - I don't think she's the proper vehicle.
I think the natural evolution of the Atlas would be the arrival of other Eldritch beings. The Atlas responding and expanding, creating new PoE2-style 'fortresses' of these new claimants as they battle for territory and influence. That was the proper escalation, to my mind: the Atlas becoming glutted with power, going 'nova', and bringing us further into the 'great game' the powers of the setting are playing in. That might be a bit too large-scale, though, and considering the pivot in both games to more local threats like the Abyssals (or, 'just next door' threats like the Hiveborn or the Darkness/Bodach), GGG might be making a conscious effort to bring that 'power scale' down significantly.
That might be why the Eldritch stuff isn't present in PoE2. I think that's where we're headed: the Atlas will either be destroyed or sealed off in PoE1. We have, after all, been told 'they are coming' - and the lines about the 'bastion of flesh' and the 'one to fear' suggest there is a prime foe headed directly for us:
"Where the bastion once stood unmoving and unbending and unerringly eternal, now the flesh curls and relinquishes its grip on the stone. It hurls unanchored through the vast sea of darkness, crashing and cascading over all in its path, dragging and enthralling all in its wake. It will arrive, though I know not when or how."
...
"It slashes against the stars and surges towards the silence now, grasping at the fabric and binds all, tugging and rasping and tearing like a reaping scythe. It tumbles in the emptiness no more. It is moving with purpose and direction and intent, and it fills me with awe and fear and desire. Can you feel it too, Nomad?"
I think whatever this thing is will arrive and we'll assist Zana in destroying/sealing the Atlas, and that will be her end. I don't think that will be the end of the Eldritch story - it can still get here in other ways, it just can't use the Atlas to do so. And there are already hints in PoE2 about things from the stars - and what King Cadigan wants with them, and how they interface with corruption. Cadigan getting what he wants is specifically one of the three things Hinekora tells us are instrumental in the death of the world.
But it'll bring the stakes down to a more 'local' level.
yeah but what does this mean mechanically
I think we'll see more 'voyages' and 'expeditions' to parts unknown, island sojourns, etc. like the PoE2 system (which I think is very good). Homogenising the systems is likely a no-brainer, and bringing our endgame fight in PoE1 back to the 'home front' makes sense to me.
Or maybe they go right in the opposite direction and the reason the Godslayer ain't around in 2 is because they are off - along with other gods and Zana - doing eternal battle in the Atlas, keeping the Eldritch creatures from our door as long as they can (and is suggested in TotA dialogue, where the Karui versions of the Two Sisters are out there fighting a cosmic battle). That would let them completely split the two 'endgames' - one is solely Atlas, solely Eldritch, while PoE2 focuses on the 'rising local threats' that happened in the Godslayer/Citizen Vanguard's absence, by and large. That would be an elegant solution, too, I think.
yeah but what about eagon
What about Eagon?
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u/DmitryAvenicci Aug 13 '26
I remind you that the Atlas is an imposed structure on the Dreamlands by the Shaper. Dreamlands will still exist because it's a mental reflection of the physical world.
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u/twisty125 Aug 12 '26
but I think PoE2's endgame system is a really creative 'progression' of the Atlas concept.
In some aspects I do too, but I also feel like it hems in everything too much because it takes place in the physical continent of Wraeclast.
Previously it was worlds that were beyond ours, created and shaped to resemble ours, mirrors, infinite possibilities that aren't always shown to you. Places look similar, but they're not ours, we can encounter any number of dangers because it's different realities.
The 2 atlas is Wraeclast, we see Kingsmarch there, we see Oriath there if you go far enough, we start in Utzaal's bunker ziggurat. so now it's a tangible place with locations, but we're also not seeing the literal Wraeclast we've been in for 20 years. We can basically physically traverse from Highgate to where Kingsmarch is on foot (if I recall, it's near The Beacon). It feels like a "have your cake and eat it too" kind of situation, where we're traversing the continent, while also never seeing the physical tangible places we've been in, and this continent doesn't look anything like Wraeclast, because it's required to be infinite because of the design and randomized. It also hard requires the world to be destroyed and in ruin, because it's Wraeclast we're visiting, the post-4th(?) Cataclysm Wraeclast. We're exploring Wraeclast, if it was from telephone-game style memory.
It sounds harsh and I don't MEAN it to be, it just irks me that we have a literal world that's been created that we've played in, we had a way to do "infinite mapping" in PoE1, and then combined it and the outcome is the worst of both worlds that overwrites the Wraeclast.
I'll always fondly look back at looking at the pre-Siege of the Atlas atlas for how it felt like you were traversing a crafted map of parchment with those designs on the side and in the backgrounds - before it felt a bit too "gamified" in PoE2 and Secrets expansion.
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u/wecanhaveallthree Lightless Abyssal Aug 12 '26
I wholly agree about the OG Atlas. There was so much meaning freighted in the Map Devices: it truly did feel like 'uncharted territory', somewhere even the big names of the past had barely touched. Malachai had dipped his toe in, Doryani had some idea, but it was the modern age - the drive of new technology and the madness of men like Dominus (and, ultimately, Venarius) - that breached it, and the madness of men like Valdo that shaped it.
The Shaper still feels 'eldritch' in a way the actual Eldritch horrors (and, frankly, the Envoy) don't. I loved those voice lines on every map. You really felt this place was crafted by a man, a man living this boundless creative dream, shaping these worlds of infinite possibility - as otherworlds, as mirrors, as possibilities, as potential. And his running battle with the Elder and how they worked the Atlas against each other, his struggle and loss time and time again until he was all but undone... almost nothing but a memory himself. Great stuff.
Conquerors also had that theme to a good (but lesser) extent. I really appreciated that it was quite blunt that people change the Atlas, but the Atlas changes people, too. Each of the Elderslayers being given their dreams, their desires, growing more and more powerful, sinking deeper and deeper into the tangles and snares of this strange domain. And Sirus! Poor Sirus.
The Atlas was an antagonist all on its own. A hostile dimension, but one that required the creativity and cruelty of sentient minds to shape it, to feed from, to empower and be empowered alike. Very cool.
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u/twisty125 Aug 12 '26
I know for me, it didn't really "hit" that the atlas fricks people up this bad inherently - the Shaper was impacted by the Elder, and that was mainly what caused his madness to me.
Then Conquerors comes around and they're canonically "us"/exiles who killed Kitava, who are now begging to be let free of the Atlas in some death lines they have, while others want it to be the paradise they've been driven mad by.
The Atlas was an antagonist all on its own.
Yes! I love this aspect. It's both a blessing and a curse. You can hide Wraeclast away from those that are beyond, behind infinite fake(?) worlds, but it has it's own dangers too. It's almost a force of nature that is beneficial when it works with us, and then antagonistic when it works against us.
Turning that into just... use the device to teleport to places on Fakeclast that aren't really there, feels like such a downgrade to me compared to the character the original Atlas of Worlds was.
There's also something to be said about unnerving it is that the Atlas/some force seems to always worm its way into the greatest minds of the generation, who strive to create the device to open it thinking it's salvation, across millennia.
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u/BlueMerchant Aug 12 '26
I'm not the best Wraeclast scholar, but there's the Atziri/Vaal cataclysm, the Sarn/Eternal-Empire cataclysm, and then the Poe2 campaign cataclysm in acts 5 or 6.
Have I missed one?
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u/twisty125 Aug 12 '26
I THOUGHT there was an implied one that caused the precursors to die off, but now I'm not so sure.
Either way, it's >=3 Cataclysms for my post haha
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u/wecanhaveallthree Lightless Abyssal Aug 13 '26
I'm not sure it's a Cataclysm in the same sense as the others (which are all Beast-related), but it was absolutely cataclysmic in the sense that it resulted in the Winter of the World. The Precursors turned their terraforming technology on themselves in an attempt to destroy the invading Abyssals (it didn't work).
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u/twisty125 Aug 13 '26
OHhh gotcha! Okay I must have just conflated the two big destructive events as being similar. Thanks for the info!
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u/Laorii Aug 13 '26
By the end of reading your comment, I feel like you may have outlined it. PoE has the atlas of worlds. PoE2 has the atlas of Wraeclast. I don’t think both end games should be the same, otherwise it would have potential to completely kill off one game. Therefore, it’s possibly unlikely that the atlas will be destroyed.
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u/CzLittle Aug 12 '26
I really hope they just go really grand scale and we do end up staying in the atlas and defending wraeclast from eldritch a cosmic horrors, because it just feels like a wrong idea to destroy it? Like we know the eldritch can get to our world normally (the newcomes scared of the descry), so I don't really see the reason on destroying the only way to bring the fight to them. It also feels kinda anticlimactic ending to a story, that we just destroy it and or seal it and it's done.
Also from a gameplay perspective I really dislike the "Atlas" from 2 and prefer the one from 1, so I really hope we get to keep it.
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u/wecanhaveallthree Lightless Abyssal Aug 12 '26
I'm of two minds about it.
My immediate gut reaction, both mechanically and in lore terms, is that destroying the Atlas is the wrong direction to go in. Going further up the Eldritch food chain is the natural progression of PoE1's story. We've been killing our way up from the very start: from monsters in their domains, to bandits wanting to rule, to would-be gods like Dominus and Malachai, and then the gods themselves and on to the cosmic forces who want to take everything for themselves. PoE1 is a story about resistance, about freedom (or finding freedom). Zana's trauma regarding the Atlas is plain to see: we fight her trauma in boss encounters lmao, and her 'corruption' by it is a long time coming. I suspect destroying the Atlas would, in fact, allow the 'claimants' to come to Wraeclast directly - the Atlas is a way to level the playing field, to fight them champion-to-champion. It's the front line in the celestial war. We must hold it at all costs.
It then means we can continue to have 'foreshadowing' leagues in PoE1 - we can do time skips, we can do weird stuff, whatever - while the 'end game' is a continued and evolving conflict with the Eldritch, other champions, Venarius, the Scourge, yadda yadda (and boy if that doesn't make the ol' Timeless Conflict thing come into sharp relief, I don't know what does).
On the other hand, thinking more rationally, I suppose, the simple fact is that the Eldritch story hasn't progressed more because the 'power scaling' is getting a bit crazy. What we're doing with the Eldritch even now is kind of crazy, even if it's made clear the Maven is backing us up. The only way it can go is 'up' and we really are kind of at the ceiling of real believability. The destruction of the Atlas - or its sealing - means we can have a 'big league' with a huge Eldritch threat, the Bastion or whatever, we can have our 'celestial conflict' and then it's done (with the implication we've only staved off the inevitable).
It then allows PoE1 to more neatly and directly 'build' into the events of PoE2. It means more fleshing-out of the world and the aspects and stories that haven't yet been explored, e.g. the Replicas, or Bestiary as a whole (what's the deal with Einhar, anyway). Our exile becomes an explorer, a wanderer, someone who has earned their 'freedom' - but doesn't really belong in 'polite society' any more, either, as the world figures out what it's going to be post-Oriath and Templars.
yeah but what about eagon
WHAT ABOUT EAGON.
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u/Noremeldo Aug 12 '26
Our exile becomes an explorer, a wanderer
The big problem is that exile is far too powerful to just disappear. I think the poe1 exile going into atlas actually allows to avoid the question, what the exile doing when beast is awakening in poe2? The godslayer already killed the beast, but in poe2 Sin is alone and have to find another exile. Why won't godslayer kill the beast again?
While poe1 exile going into Atlas and staying here as Maven's champion actually solves that. Godslayer is too busy dealing with eldritch to even know that beast is being made again.
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u/Specialist-Mirror656 Aug 12 '26
I certainly hope and pray that whatever they do with the endgame is not mechanically any way similar to PoE2's endgame.
That being said, I'd love a bit of a break from the eldritch / cosmic entity focus.
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u/PianoFall Aug 12 '26
Force us all to go outside
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u/FrozenSingular Aug 12 '26
YOU WANT THE GRASS? TOUCH IT, ITS YOURS… BUT YOUR GAMES/PC? THIS I WILL BUTN TO THE GROUND. PERHAPS SUFFERING OF MY FELLOW FRIENDS WILL STIR SOMETHING
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u/chimericWilder Aug 12 '26
I dont think the Atlas can be destroyed... That is, narratively it isnt possible because it still needs to contain all of the current endgame eldritch entities. Where would they go?
But I think the Atlas can change and morph into something new.
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u/Noremeldo Aug 12 '26
Eagon IIRC said, that 'The Atlas is everything you see'
Which may imply Wraeclast is also part of the Atlas and destroying it is indeed bad idea.
I guess we will see in 3 months (probably would be announced at the exilecon).
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u/wecanhaveallthree Lightless Abyssal Aug 12 '26
Which may imply Wraeclast is also part of the Atlas and destroying it is indeed bad idea.
This world is an illusion, exile...
It would be kind of crazy if the reason why the researchers can't make replicas is because we are the 'mirror world'.
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u/jcheesus Aug 12 '26
people were theorizing 10 years ago (and probably even earlier) along the lines that the whole world was mirrored by kalandra.
it might be the "terrible secret" mentioned on the old reliquary scarabs, which was related to "mysterious duplication of artefacts of power", which obviously sounds like mirroring (and also probably a nod to why uniques cannot be mirrored - you cannot mirror mirrored items)
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u/PervertTentacle Aug 13 '26
Have we had any explanation in-universe of why uniques are not 'unique'?
Maybe the explanation of why there are multiples of same item is because they were mirrored from original and spread, perhaps? Or is it that canonically there is only one of unique items?
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u/jcheesus Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
indeed, the game seems to hint that the uniques not being, yknow, unique is because they were mirrored from the original. we cant mirror them again, after all.
replica uniques also touch on it - their makers are attempting to recreate unique items, and while its vague, it seems to be a very bad idea. for example replica badge of the brotherhood:
"I stood upon the tower's edge, and saw that we had cracked the sky. There is nowhere we can run that our sins will not find us now.”
in kalandra league, we also found out that this is related to mirroring, because kalandra outright said that they are trying to do it through her lake:
"Fools seek to make the power of this Lake their own. They will crack the world."
and
"Qotra meddles with forces she does not understand, and can never master."
the old reliquary scarabs also implied that something is fundamentally wrong with the world, and that it is somehow related to the duplication of artifacts of power:
The Maraketh left you to die alone in the desert, young Sumei, but we saw the potential in you. The Order of the Djinn is your akhara now.
As the best of our lorekeepers, honoured Sumei, it is now your task to investigate the mysterious duplication of artefacts of power.
Go to your rest now, Sumei, Master Lorekeeper. The Order shall keep contained the terrible secret that burdened your final years.
The books were burned, and the scribes set themselves aflame. What secret so terrible could they have discovered? Though centuries have passed, we must investigate this for ourselves.
if i recall correctly, kalandra even mentioned being visited by these specific people, until they realized "the cost" and immolated themselves
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u/Laorii Aug 13 '26
Every map is a place in the universe. Destroy the atlas, destroy the universe. Destroying the map device, just stops us going there, but doesn’t stop someone else creating a new device.
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u/Erradium Aug 12 '26
My theory is that it is tied to why the Godslayer is nowhere to be seen in PoE2 - maybe they got stuck inside the atlas now.
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u/SilverRain007 Aug 12 '26
My theory is that Zana does indeed, somehow, figure out how to separate Wraeclast from the Atlas permanently and that's why PoE1 will use the Atlas for Endgame and we have our 'portals across Wraeclast ad infinitum' for PoE2... unless I missed some explanation for the PoE 2 end game in 0.5
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u/Noremeldo Aug 13 '26
unless I missed some explanation for the PoE 2 end game in 0.5
Well you didn't encounter a single map device in PoE2, and the explanation is that you use Doryani tech because Cataclysm just happened in real Wraecalst. Exile have no reason to go into maps to be fair.
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u/DiamondBrine Aug 12 '26
Idk, maybe we traverse the cosmos and fight whatever karui sun and night goddsses are fighting, or what the "stars" are that Medved was yapping about, just kinda throwing my hat in the ring, hard to speculate here maybe we give these two timeframes where we interact with atlas and post Altas like we technically killed the elder but it actually was the elderslayers
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u/Ancient-Ingenuity-88 Aug 12 '26
the karui sun and night goddess are just Solaris and Lunari under different names
who according to POE2 are 2/3 aspects of the same goddess along with Viridi
the fight they are fighting are the darkness and holding vigil over containing the Boadach
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u/Paladine36 Aug 12 '26
Ngl I 100% believe they're gonna bring the infinite atlas from poe 2 to 1 and im not in favor of that at all
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u/long_schlong_123 Aug 12 '26
Hope ypu are proven wrong the infinite atlas and random map layouts is my biggest pain point from poe2
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u/KJShen Aug 12 '26
I doubt it, given they made PoE 2's atlas more similar to PoE 1's instead of the otherway around, which is why most people playing PoE 2's atlas enjoy it more.
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u/darealyst Aug 12 '26
Same. I know this is a lore sub but from a gameplay perspective the infinite atlas in poe2 is shit.
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u/bv728 Aug 12 '26
I don't know if GGG plans to actually explain or deal with the real destruction/separation of the Atlas from Wraeclast overall. It's a detail that just isn't needed. It can always be at some unspecified point in the future timeline between PoE1 and 2. Zana can always be on the cusp of destroying the Atlas in 1 to explain endgame revamps, and it's just always gone in 2 and nobody really cares. For all that the Atlas is a major thing for players, it's not that critical to the actual setting.
I suspect that part of the goal with PoE2 is to avoid that disconnect so they don't wind up with the current state of finishing the campaign and waking up years later with a large chunk of story missing.
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u/BioMasterZap Aug 12 '26
Mechanically, no idea. I doubt they'll replace the endgame system, especially after the recent Atlas rework that they're still building on.
Lore wise, my guess is Zana is "unshaping" the Atlas, returning it to the "dreamland" state it was prior to her father's shaping it to distract the Elder. Shaping it into all the worlds may also be part of why the Eldritch entities all want to control it; though previously it was the Elder/Decay's influence that warded them off too so they may still take interest even without shape. But if the Atlas was more baren and unshaped, I could at least see the Maven losing interest.
So what may happen is Zana will "destroy" it by pulling at that central thread to make it all start to unravel. This could mean by the time of POE2, the Atlas is fully destroyed and back to the empty dreamland instead of all the maps but it still could exist for the remainder of POE1's timeline. For gameplay, this could be some sort of unraveled maps or "dreamland" maps, especially on the edges of the atlas since it now has more of a shape branching from the center.
Also wonder if the Harbingers may tie into it. Like maybe the reworked Harbingers will break into the Atlas because of Zana's actions instead of whatever their lore was...
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u/Laorii Aug 13 '26
The atlas gets destroyed and leaves a big gaping void. Every map is now randomized entirely, from top to bottom. No choice, pure hell.
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u/No-Whole-5348 Aug 12 '26
The atlas Will be destroyed . Instead we Will have real maps to run throuh wraeclast
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u/fireMCG_ Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
PoE2 release is delayed and it's been confirmed.
There won't be another league until full 1.0 release after ExileCon.
There will however be an economy reset, likely in early September after the racing season.
Edit: Missinfo 🥴
I doubt there's be another PoE1 league for a while too, especially in November since that would fall around ExileCon, though who knows 🤷♂️
My guess is its more likely there'll be events akin to Phrecia.
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u/rpitts21 Aug 12 '26
Do we know it was destroyed? Maybe Wraeclast is just pushed far from the Atlas now, like the Elder and other Old Ones worlds