Path of Exile’s Covens of Umbra Expansion Replaces Scarabs and Overhauls the Atlas on November 13
Grinding Gear Games used ExileCon 2026 to unveil Covens of Umbra, Path of Exile’s next challenge league and the 3.30 expansion, launching November 13 (PST) as a free update on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Epic Games. The same event confirmed that Path of Exile 2’s “Conquerors of Wraeclast” update will leave early access on December 11, but Covens of Umbra is a separate, standalone drop for the original game.
The Coven Queen and the Fates System
The league’s story follows the Coven Queen, who has turned her homeland of Umbra to darkness and now wants Wraeclast too. Her covens perform dark rituals around cauldrons, and players work with Mora, a prisoner escaping the Queen’s grip, to hunt the covens down and disrupt them. Defeating a coven grants a Fate, and up to three Fates can be invoked against a single boss fight at once, turning it into a harder trial for noticeably better rewards — examples shown include explosive blackfire and deadly vine attacks. Combining matching Fates can unlock rarer drops, including new Exceptional Support Gems and entirely new Unique items.
The Wickerman and Viscera
The league mechanic itself centers on the Wickerman, a wooden effigy players use to bind boss remains and claim their strength. Those remains come as Viscera — trophies taken from Fate-empowered bosses, each granting a specific bonus like extra life, faster regeneration, or stronger poisons. Over 120 Viscera are collectible across the campaign and the Atlas, and players can equip up to four at once across the Wickerman’s head, arm, body, and leg slots. More than two dozen new bosses have been added to campaign areas that previously had none, and at the Atlas level, Grim Fates persist between instances and can be invoked against Pinnacle Bosses — Sirus, Uber Elder, and the Shaper all get reworked attack patterns when targeted this way, dropping exclusive Pinnacle Boss Viscera that rank among the strongest bonuses in the game.
Threads of Creation Replace Scarabs
The bigger structural change is on the Atlas side: Scarabs are being removed entirely and replaced by Threads of Creation, which enhance ten primary league mechanics — Abyss, Blight, Legion, Breach, Incursion, Betrayal, Bestiary, Expedition, Ultimatum, and Ritual. Players can invest up to eight Threads into a single mechanic to push its difficulty, rewards, and chance at special modifiers higher, and the Atlas questline unlocks up to three Map Device slots that guarantee specific mechanics on a map. Thread configurations persist between maps and pull their required items automatically from the stash, cutting down on the inventory management Scarabs demanded. Many of the bonuses that used to be Scarab-exclusive have moved into a redesigned Atlas Passive Tree instead, which adds new notables and league-specific passives across the board.
A Rarity Overhaul for Item Drops
Item drops are also getting a rarity overhaul: Magic and Rare items now show visible item tiers, with higher tiers producing stronger modifiers, better base types, and a shot at more sockets and links. Monster Item Rarity now improves the odds of better currency, Divination Cards, Gems, and Uniques dropping at all, rather than just increasing how many Magic and Rare items show up.
Release Details
Covens of Umbra goes live November 13 as a free update on Steam and console. Players juggling both games in the franchise can also check out Path of Exile 2 PC keys, grab a Steam Wallet Code (EU) for in-game cosmetics and stash tabs, or browse our wider PC game deals ahead of the league launch.
