The PoE 1 vs PoE 2 player count question has a stranger answer than most rivalries: both games win, on a schedule. Grinding Gear Games runs two flagship action RPGs at once, and every league launch since mid-2025 has flipped the Steam lead from one to the other. The live chart below tracks both games’ Steam player counts month by month, and the numbers under it show a pattern steady enough to set a calendar by.
Right now Path of Exile 1 holds the lead. Curse of the Allflame launched on July 24, drove PoE 1 to a 187,116 concurrent peak, and pulled tens of thousands of players straight out of Path of Exile 2’s Return of the Ancients league. Two months from now, the trade runs the other way. This page explains the cycle, shows the data behind it, and stays current because the chart updates itself.
Key Takeaways
- Current leader: PoE 1, with a 44,643 average and 187,116 peak over the last 30 days on Steam, against PoE 2’s 34,456 average and 87,828 peak.
- The pattern: every league launch since June 2025 has flipped the Steam lead. Seven launches, seven flips.
- It is deliberate: GGG locks each game to a four-month league cycle, offset so the two games launch about two months apart. Director Jonathan Rogers: “We’re doing four months, it’s going to be consistent.”
- Bigger overall: PoE 2 posts the higher launch peaks (420,409 in May against PoE 1’s 187,116 in July), while PoE 1 holds a loyal base that returns in force for its leagues.
- Steam undercounts both: the numbers exclude the standalone PC client and consoles, so treat them as a consistent sample rather than a census.
The Live Player Count Chart
This chart pulls monthly Steam player counts for both games and updates on its own. The crossovers are the story: each time the lines swap places, a league launched.
A reading tip: each point is a monthly figure, so a league that launches late in the month barely dents its own month. Return of the Ancients went live on May 29 and May looks quiet; the 173,022 June average is where it shows up. Same for Curse of the Allflame on July 24, which lands fully in the August numbers.
Who Is Winning Right Now
PoE 1 leads. Curse of the Allflame (patch 3.29) went live on July 24, 2026 and put up a 187,116 concurrent peak on Steam, its biggest league peak in more than a year. Over the last 30 days PoE 1 averaged 44,643 concurrent players to PoE 2’s 34,456.
The other half of that story is where those players came from. PoE 2’s Return of the Ancients league averaged 173,022 concurrent players in June. By late July, with Allflame live, its 30-day average had fallen to about a fifth of that. The league was two months old and the other game had fresh content, so the migration is exactly on schedule. If Allflame pulled you back in, our Curse of the Allflame league start guide covers the best builds and the new mechanic.
Every League Launch Flips the Lead
Here is every league launch across both games since PoE 1 returned to a regular schedule, with each game’s average concurrent players on Steam in the month that followed. The leader alternates seven times in a row.
| Launch | Game | League | PoE 1 Avg | PoE 2 Avg | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 13, 2025 | PoE 1 | Secrets of the Atlas (3.26) | 50,856 | 15,524 | PoE 1 |
| Aug 29, 2025 | PoE 2 | The Third Edict (0.3) | 5,734 | 121,310 | PoE 2 |
| Oct 31, 2025 | PoE 1 | Keepers of the Flame (3.27) | 66,031 | 12,281 | PoE 1 |
| Dec 12, 2025 | PoE 2 | Fate of the Vaal (0.4) | 13,507 | 79,436 | PoE 2 |
| Mar 6, 2026 | PoE 1 | Mirage (3.28) | 58,140 | 9,087 | PoE 1 |
| May 29, 2026 | PoE 2 | Return of the Ancients (0.5) | 5,521 | 173,022 | PoE 2 |
| Jul 24, 2026 | PoE 1 | Curse of the Allflame (3.29) | 44,643 | 34,456 | PoE 1 |
Averages are from SteamCharts for the full month after each launch; the July 2026 row uses the trailing 30 days. The swings are not small. PoE 1 fell to a 5,734 average while The Third Edict ran, then tripled its own June numbers when Keepers of the Flame arrived. PoE 2 dropped to 9,087 during Mirage, then hit a 420,409 all-time-league peak when Return of the Ancients landed in May.
The first flip predates the table. In February 2025, the experimental Legacy of Phrecia event pushed PoE 1 to a 91,977 peak against PoE 2’s 87,222, the first time the original led since PoE 2’s early access launch in December 2024. Every scheduled league since has repeated the trick in one direction or the other.
The Four-Month Cycle Behind the Trade
The alternation is policy, not coincidence. In a mid-2025 interview with Talkative Tri, game director Jonathan Rogers committed GGG to fixed release dates on a set rhythm: “We’re doing four months, it’s going to be consistent, it’s always going to be the case.” Dates now outrank features. As Rogers put it, “the date is fixed and the content is not,” even when that means a planned class misses its patch.
Run two four-month cycles about two months out of phase and you get the calendar in the table above: a fresh league somewhere in the Path of Exile universe roughly every eight weeks, and never both games launching at once. Each game gets a clean launch window with the community’s full attention, then hands the spotlight back.
League resets do the rest. An economy wipe and a new mechanic are the strongest comeback trigger these games have, so whichever title just reset pulls the shared audience, and the two-month-old league bleeds players. Rogers has also argued the games no longer compete head-on: “both games feel completely different at this point.”
Which Game Is Bigger Overall
By raw Steam peaks, PoE 2. Its early access launch hit 578,562 concurrent players in December 2024, and Return of the Ancients reached 420,409 in May 2026. PoE 1’s best league launches top out under 200,000. PoE 2 also sustains higher averages during its league months: 121,310 in September 2025 and 173,022 in June 2026, against PoE 1’s typical 45,000 to 66,000.
PoE 1 counters with retention that games this old are not supposed to have. Its league launches still triple or quadruple its resting player count on demand. Between leagues, the surprise is how even things get: PoE 1 idled around 5,500 average players in June while PoE 2 idled at 6,900 to 9,100 in the spring. At rest the two games are nearly the same size. The leagues make the whole difference. On Reddit the split reads less like a rivalry than a rotation, with veterans logging a thousand hours in one game and hundreds in the other, then jumping to whichever resets next.
Play PoE 1 right now if:
- You want the fresh league. Curse of the Allflame launched July 24 and its economy is still young.
- You want the deeper endgame, with a decade of layered systems.
- Your favorite build got gutted in PoE 2 and you want it back.
Play PoE 2 right now if:
- You prefer the slower, heavier combat and modern presentation.
- You are catching up on Return of the Ancients before the next reset wipes the economy.
- You want to learn the game before the 1.0 crowd arrives.
What Steam Numbers Miss
Every number on this page is Steam-only, and both games run well beyond Steam. PoE 1 has always run its own standalone PC client alongside Steam, and a share of its veterans never touch the Steam version. Both games are on PlayStation and Xbox, and PoE 2 sells console packs GGG has never broken out publicly. GGG does not publish combined player numbers.
That makes Steam a sample, not a census. It is still the right sample: it is public, it is measured the same way for both games, and there is no obvious reason standalone or console players would migrate on a different rhythm. The flips are real even if the totals run higher than the chart shows. For how these two stack up against everything else on the platform, see our most played games on Steam tracker.
What Happens Next
The cadence says the next move belongs to PoE 2, roughly two months after Allflame’s July 24 launch, which points to late September or early October. It may be the biggest move yet: GGG has called Return of the Ancients the final planned content update of early access, so the next PoE 2 launch is expected to be 1.0, with the remaining classes and the full campaign. A 1.0 release would test whether the trade pattern holds or PoE 2 simply takes the lead and keeps it.
Until then, PoE 1 has the stage. If you are in Wraeclast the old-fashioned way this league, the current league tracker follows both games’ seasons in one place, and PoE 2 returners can catch up with the Runes of Aldur guide before the reset.
Gear for League Start Grinds
A league start crams the heaviest playtime of the whole cycle into its first week, and both games reward hardware built for it. A side-button mouse maps a PoE skill bar without keyboard gymnastics, and a fast 1440p panel keeps map clutter readable when the screen fills up. Here is the kit that fits both games.
Razer Naga V2 HyperSpeed
A 19-button wireless MMO mouse that runs up to 400 hours on one AA, built for six-flask piano and a full skill bar. 35% off list.
LG Ultragear 27GR83Q-B
A 27-inch QHD IPS panel at 240Hz, so juiced maps stay readable in both games. 44% off list.
Razer BlackShark V2 X
Light, closed-back, and clear enough to catch off-screen audio cues through a long mapping session. 33% off list.
Prices as of August 2026 from the linked deals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does PoE 1 or PoE 2 have more players?
It depends on the week. Whichever game launched a league most recently leads on Steam, and the lead has flipped at every launch since June 2025. As of August 2026, PoE 1 leads with a 44,643 thirty-day average against PoE 2’s 34,456, because Curse of the Allflame launched on July 24. By overall peaks, PoE 2 is larger: 578,562 at early access launch and 420,409 for Return of the Ancients.
Is Path of Exile 1 dead?
No. Its July 2026 league, Curse of the Allflame, peaked at 187,116 concurrent Steam players, its biggest league peak in more than a year. PoE 1 leagues continue on a four-month cycle alongside PoE 2, and GGG has kept shipping major expansions for it through 2026.
Why do PoE 1 and PoE 2 leagues launch at different times?
Grinding Gear Games schedules them that way. Director Jonathan Rogers has said each game runs a consistent four-month league cycle, and the two cycles are offset by about two months. That gives each launch a clean window and puts fresh Path of Exile content on the calendar roughly every eight weeks.
Do the same people play both games?
A large share of the audience rotates between them, which is why every league launch pulls players from the other game. The counts move in opposite directions at each launch: when Return of the Ancients took PoE 2 to a 173,022 June average, PoE 1 fell to 5,521, and the reverse happened when Allflame arrived in July.
Are these player counts the full picture?
No. The numbers track Steam only. PoE 1 also runs on its own standalone PC client, and both games are on PlayStation and Xbox, none of which appear in Steam concurrents. GGG does not publish combined totals, so Steam is used because it measures both games the same way.
When is the next PoE 2 league?
GGG has not announced a date. On the established cadence it would land roughly two months after PoE 1’s July 24 launch, in late September or early October 2026. GGG has called Return of the Ancients the final planned early access update, so the next launch is expected to be the 1.0 release.
Summary
The PoE 1 vs PoE 2 player count race is a planned relay, not a fight. GGG runs both games on four-month league cycles, offset by two months, and the Steam lead has changed hands at all seven launches since June 2025. PoE 1 holds it today on the back of Curse of the Allflame; the next PoE 2 launch, likely 1.0, takes its turn in the fall. The chart at the top keeps score as it happens.