For Path of Exile 3.20 Expansion, Grinding Gear Games hosted a live stream where it revealed The Forbidden Sanctum, which is one of the most important updates for Path of Exile in 2022. The new Ruthless game mode is what drew most of the attention and if you want to try out the new content, it will be available for free to all players.

Ruthless Mode
If you have not caught up with the recent live stream, the new Ruthless mode will launch alongside the Forbidden Sanctum update on December 9th. It seeks to offer a challenging experience with additional character flags like Solo Self-Found and Hardcore. The goal of the mode is to reduce your power instead of buffing enemies to oblivion.

The game will not go out of its way to nerf your stats either. Instead, you will notice that items are difficult to find in the game mode. The drop rates for magic, rare and unique items will be dropped to a minimum so every new drop will be very important for your playthrough. You will also be restricted in terms of gems, and flask usage, and players who have been asking for a truly hardcore experience will finally get to dip their toes in some truly brutal content.

Significant Things in Ruthless Mode
Every item that drops in Ruthless mode can be a massive upgrade to your gear thanks to the low drop rates limiting how easily you can boost your power. Rings, Amulets, and Belts will no longer be purchasable from vendors and most league rewards are being tweaked to grant items that are specific to that league only as well as core items.

Item rarity bonuses are being implemented which means that you still have opportunities to be as strong as possible but you have to earn your power. But the game will steer away from items like Divination Cards or Oni-Goroshi. Bosses that drop powerful items (like Atziri) will still be available but accessing them will be harder.

Crafting is also being tweaked and the game wants to focus on random drops than crafting. It is much harder to find items and players will quickly realize that making your own items is a luxury in Ruthless mode. The drop rate of crafting currencies will be reduced dramatically in Ruthless, which forces players to rely on random drops instead. Here are some of the ways crafting is being limited:

*The drop rate of crafting currency items has been reduced

*The rate at which you receive shards of crafting currency when vendoring items have been reduced

*Master crafting is not available. The crafting bench cannot be accessed and recipe plinths will be inaccessible

*Veiled Chaos Orbs, Orbs of Binding, Orbs of Dominance, Influenced Exalted Orbs and Awakener's Orbs will be inaccessible

*When an Influenced Item is reforged or the Influenced Mod is removed, its influence is lost.

*Most vendor recipes are not available. A few new Ruthless-specific vendor recipes have been introduced.