Who is Grinding Gear Games? The studio behind Path of Exile
Grinding Gear Games built its reputation by doing something unusually focused: spending almost two decades developing one action RPG franchise.
The Auckland studio was founded in November 2006 by a group of developers and experienced online RPG players who wanted to create the kind of action RPG they themselves wanted to play.
That project became Path of Exile.
Instead of releasing it and immediately moving on, the studio kept expanding the game through leagues, balance changes, bosses, new systems and major endgame updates.
As a result, a relatively small New Zealand developer gradually became the company behind one of gaming’s most established free-to-play action RPGs.
Today, the studio employs more than 200 developers and supports the original game while also building and operating Path of Exile 2.
It started with one ambitious game
The studio was established in Auckland in 2006.
Its founding team brought experience from artificial intelligence, software security, industrial design and competitive gaming. More importantly, they shared an interest in online RPGs.
Rather than creating a catalogue of smaller projects first, the team concentrated on one game.
That became Path of Exile.
The studio’s own history can be found on the official Grinding Gear Games website.
Even today, that focus still defines the company.
Instead of building its reputation through dozens of unrelated titles, the developer has repeatedly expanded and rebuilt systems around the same franchise.
Path of Exile officially launched in 2013
After years of development and testing, Path of Exile entered Open Beta in January 2013 before reaching its full 1.0 release on 23 October 2013.
The launch was already significant for a relatively small New Zealand team.
During 2013, more than 3.7 million new players registered, while the development team expanded from around 20 employees to 55.
At the same time, the game quickly developed a reputation for complexity.
Its enormous Passive Skill Tree became one of its defining features.
Character builds could branch in many directions, while items interacted with skills and Support Gems modified abilities.
Crafting added another layer of depth.
Instead of aggressively simplifying those systems, the developers made complexity part of the game’s identity.
Free-to-play became part of the company’s identity
The original game launched as free-to-play.
Rather than charging for access to the base experience, the business model centred on optional purchases such as cosmetics, supporter packs and account features including stash tabs.
That approach had an important advantage because new players could try the game without purchasing it first.
Friends could also join existing players without another upfront cost.
In addition, new leagues could attract returning players without requiring them to buy another expansion.
The model naturally encouraged long-term development.
A free-to-play game depends on people continuing to return. Therefore, development could not simply stop after the initial release.
Leagues became the engine behind its longevity
One of the most important ideas was the challenge-league structure.
New leagues regularly create a fresh economy and encourage players to begin new characters.
That reset matters in a loot-heavy action RPG because long-term players eventually accumulate enormous amounts of currency and equipment.
Fresh leagues remove much of that advantage.
Everyone starts again, while new builds emerge and the economy resets.
Community guides also change, and new mechanics force experienced players to relearn parts of the game.
As a result, the league cycle helped transform Path of Exile from something players finished into something many returned to repeatedly.
The game kept evolving long after launch
The 2013 release was effectively the beginning rather than the end.
By 2025, the developer said it had released more than 40 expansions for the original game.
Some introduced focused league mechanics, while others changed major systems.
The Atlas reshaped the endgame.
Skills were repeatedly rebalanced.
Crafting systems changed.
New bosses appeared, and older mechanics were revised or removed.
However, those changes have not always been universally popular.
A powerful build in one league may be weaker in the next. An item may change, a passive may move, or a familiar system may disappear.
Even so, that instability also prevents the game from remaining static.
Path of Exile eventually won a BAFTA
The studio’s approach received major recognition in 2020.
Path of Exile won the BAFTA Games Award for Evolving Game.
That award was especially appropriate because the game had already been commercially available for nearly seven years.
Instead of slowing down, development continued.
Meanwhile, the company was preparing something much larger.
Path of Exile 2 began as something very different
The sequel was announced at ExileCon in November 2019.
At first, it was closely connected to the original game.
Over time, however, the project changed substantially.
The team eventually developed it into a separate title rather than simply a massive expansion.
That created a much larger challenge.
The sequel needed its own campaign, animation system, classes, bosses and a revised approach to Skill Gems.
At the same time, it still needed to preserve the deep character-building systems that made the original successful.
TechnologyBlog has already covered Path of Exile 2 and its planned December 2026 full release.
Internal link: Insert a real hyperlink here from the phrase Path of Exile 2 to your existing TechnologyBlog article.
Early Access attracted a huge audience
The sequel entered Early Access on 6 December 2024.
Interest was immediate, with hundreds of thousands of people playing simultaneously on Steam during the launch period.
That put the studio in a very different position from its original 2013 release.
Back then, it was a relatively unknown New Zealand developer introducing its first major game.
By 2024, however, it was releasing the follow-up to an established global ARPG.
Naturally, expectations were much higher.
Combat became more deliberate
The sequel changes the moment-to-moment experience significantly.
Bosses require more attention, while positioning and dodging play a larger role.
Animations also feel heavier, and enemies can punish players who simply stand still and repeatedly use the same attack.
Even so, the game still allows players to create highly specialised and powerful builds.
The difference is that the journey towards that power now requires more active combat.
Therefore, the sequel can establish its own identity without abandoning the complexity associated with the franchise.
The original game is staying alive
Perhaps the most unusual decision is that the first game has not been replaced.
Both titles continue to exist.
As a result, the studio now supports one extremely mature live-service ARPG while developing and operating another.
The original still has years of systems, leagues, items and character builds behind it.
Some players prefer its faster combat, while others have invested thousands of hours understanding its mechanics.
Keeping it active allows those players to remain where they are instead of being forced into the sequel.
Two games can serve different audiences
Maintaining both titles also gives the developer more flexibility.
The sequel does not need to copy every design choice made by the first game.
Instead, it can establish a different combat style, adjust progression and experiment with bosses and movement.
Meanwhile, the original can continue serving players who prefer its existing systems.
That creates an unusual situation.
One developer now has two substantial games within the same franchise operating side by side.
Tencent first invested in the company in 2018
The ownership structure has also changed dramatically.
Tencent acquired a majority stake in the New Zealand studio in 2018.
At the time, the developer told players it would continue operating independently in New Zealand and would retain control over the international version of Path of Exile.
The transaction also allowed Tencent to eventually acquire up to 100% of the company.
New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office approved that structure.
Readers interested in the original transaction can see the official decision through the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office record.
Tencent now owns the studio outright
Current New Zealand company information lists Sixjoy Hong Kong Limited as the holder of all Grinding Gear Games shares.
Sixjoy is a Tencent subsidiary.
Therefore, the company is now fully owned through Tencent’s corporate structure.
This differs from the situation many long-term players remember from 2018, when Tencent initially became the majority shareholder.
Importantly, ownership and day-to-day development are not the same thing.
The company remains based in Auckland and continues developing its games from New Zealand.
The team has grown enormously
The size of the studio has changed almost as much as the games.
In 2013, the company reported growing from around 20 employees to 55.
By 2016, it had 88 staff.
Current recruitment material describes a team of more than 200 developers in Auckland.
That growth reflects the scale of the work.
The original game now contains more than a decade of accumulated content, while the sequel requires substantial animation, art, engineering, server and design teams.
Both titles also need customer support, community management and ongoing infrastructure.
Therefore, this is no longer a small indie team, even if its history began that way.
Auckland remains central to the business
Despite Tencent ownership and an international player base, the studio remains closely tied to New Zealand.
Its base is in Henderson, Auckland.
The company also continues recruiting for its Auckland development team.
That makes it one of the more prominent game developers operating outside the traditional North American, European and Japanese development centres.
Its audience is global and its ownership is international.
However, its development identity remains strongly connected to New Zealand.
Complexity remains one of its strongest trademarks
Another thing has remained consistent.
The studio rarely seems afraid of difficult systems.
Many games progressively simplify progression to make onboarding easier.
This developer often takes the opposite approach.
Skills overlap, endgame systems interact and items can contain complicated modifiers.
Crafting can also require substantial knowledge.
Because of that, players frequently use community tools and guides to understand everything available.
Naturally, that limits accessibility.
Not everyone wants an ARPG that rewards extensive research.
However, the developer understands that depth is one of the reasons its audience remains invested.
The community became part of the development process
The complexity of the games also created an unusually knowledgeable community.
Players test interactions and identify balance problems.
They create build planners, calculate crafting probabilities and analyse patch notes.
In addition, they produce guides and challenge design decisions.
That feedback has become part of how the games evolve.
The relationship is not always comfortable.
Major changes can provoke intense criticism, while a popular build may disappear after a balance update.
A new league can also be poorly received.
Even so, the strength of those reactions reflects how deeply some players understand the systems.
Difficulty is deliberate
The games are also willing to punish bad decisions.
Poor character choices can create weak builds, while bosses can kill unprepared players.
Complex mechanics can punish mistakes.
High-level content may also require significant preparation.
The sequel pushes this approach further through more deliberate boss encounters and movement.
That style will not appeal to everyone.
It is not supposed to.
Instead, the company has built much of its audience around players who enjoy learning difficult systems and gradually mastering them.
Monetisation remains central to the model
Both games depend on ongoing development.
Therefore, monetisation has to fund years of work.
The studio has historically relied on cosmetics, supporter packs and features such as stash tabs.
More importantly, the international version of the game has built its reputation around avoiding direct sales of character power.
When Tencent first invested in 2018, the developer explicitly told players it did not intend to change the international game into a pay-to-win model.
That distinction matters because a long-term online ARPG depends heavily on player trust.
Selling direct character power could undermine the progression system that keeps players engaged.
Path of Exile 2 is now the biggest test
The original has already proved it can survive for years.
The sequel still has to do the same.
TechnologyBlog’s existing Path of Exile 2 article covers its current Early Access position and planned transition to free-to-play on 11 December 2026.
Internal link: Insert a second internal link here to the same TechnologyBlog Path of Exile 2 article, using a natural anchor such as Path of Exile 2 article.
That date will be one of the biggest moments in the company’s history.
The studio will then have two active games carrying the same franchise.
One has more than a decade of accumulated systems.
The other still needs to establish its own long-term audience.
Supporting both without making either feel abandoned will therefore be difficult.
Why the studio matters
The history of Grinding Gear Games is interesting precisely because it is so focused.
It did not build its reputation by releasing dozens of unrelated games.
Instead, it built one and then spent more than a decade refusing to stop developing it.
Path of Exile launched in 2013 and kept expanding.
Eventually, it won a BAFTA for evolving.
At the same time, the development team grew from a small group into more than 200 people.
Tencent moved from majority investor to full owner.
Ultimately, the original project became large enough to justify a separate sequel.
That led to Path of Exile 2.
The biggest question is no longer whether this studio understands action RPGs.
Its history already answers that.
The question now is whether the developer that became famous by maintaining one enormously complicated game can successfully maintain two.
