It's the start of 2017 here in New Zealand. In addition to wishing the entire community a happy new year, we wanted to post our annual retrospective on 2016. We are proud to announce that, once again, we've had the best year so far for both the game and the company! 2017 is already looking good. In addition to launching Act 5 in the first half of the year, we also have some other exciting projects in the works. Thank you to the staff and our dedicated community for making all of this possible!

In 2016:

• We launched four challenge leagues: Perandus, Prophecy, Essence and Breach.
• We absorbed the Russia and Singapore Garena communities.
• We introduced cloaks!
• We released our two largest ever expansions: Ascendancy and Atlas of Worlds.
• We launched more purple leagues than any previous year.
• We set a record number of players online with the introduction of the Breach challenge league.
• We launched a successful alpha and beta release in China. Path of Exile is currently listed as #1 on the most anticipated upcoming games list on the popular Chinese news site 17173.com.
• We expanded from 60 to 92 staff members.
• Chris shaved his beard.
• We deployed 76 updates/patches to our realm.
• We posted 313 news articles - an average of 6 posts per week.
• There were 40% more hours played of Path of Exile on our realm in 2016 than 2015. This is a buff.
• Massively increased average game performance (by triple for many users).
• Grinding Gear Games celebrated its 10 year anniversary!

Don't forget, the Path of Exile Talent Competition ends in two weeks! We've had many awesome submissions already but there's still time to participate if you're interested. Have a great new year everyone!