Path of Exile takes place in a dark fantasy world. The story begins with you getting exiled from Oriath to Wraeclast by high templar Dominus. Depending on your chosen class, your crimes regarding your exilement vary. In the world of the game, the continent of Wreaclest once served as the center of a mighty empire. But now it is the land of the damned brimming with various deadly monsters and horrors and people are sent here as a severe punishment guaranteeing almost certain death.

You start games washed up on the shore of this penal colony and from this point on, you will have to face the dangerous monsters and the peoples who reside here and torment the exiles. 

Act 1-The Shore:
After your rugged arrival, your welcoming party is a horde of undead on the shores. You will come to find that a small band of survivors are holed up in a ruined lighthouse, desperately fighting off both the forces of the undead and the scavengers that stubbornly cling to their final bits of humanity remaining. 

The shoreline is decorated with the decrepit remains of shipwrecks with the spirits of the sailors still haunting their ill-fated vessels. All the while the Siren continues to lure ships to their certain doom.

Act 2-The Forest:
Hands of time have worn down many buildings over the long year past the glory of the former empire. Decay took all flesh away, leaving only grotesquely grinning bones in its place. Putrid dark caves give home to the skeletal hordes, while in the forests and riverways of the land bloodthirsty monsters prey for their next unlucky victim. 

Recently rag-tag groups of savage bandits built camps in the forest fighting with each other out in the open. They take food and other supplies from a struggling small village sitting atop a stone dam between the camps.

Ignored by the bandits some new faces arrived dressed in all black armour sulking around the various ruins. Their purpose yet is shrouded in mystery. 

Act 3-The city of Sarn:
Sarn, its former glory shadowed by a crumbling cityscape of ruined buildings. But the city is far from being uninhabited. Its former residents still lurk in the darkness, their humanity long taken away by the cataclysm of the past centuries. The undying citizens roam the streets of their bygone city at night and take shelter in the shadows during the day from the sunlight that feels like a curse upon their withered leathery skins.

However lately, regiments of soldiers from Oriath have come to the city occupying the western area of the river and fighting off the former citizens of the once glorious city. 

Seemingly without end every day these black-clad soldiers fight off twisted flesh-eating insects. They skirmish against a small group of exiles who took shelter on an island in the middle of the river caught between two sides of certain death.

Act 4-Highgate:
Decades ago, Voll marched towards Highgate to destroy the source of all thaumaturgy: the Beast. Alongside Malachai and his Rapture Device, he hoped to stop thaumaturgy and raise a new empire of theocracy from what remains. Unfortunately for Voll, Malachai never intended to destroy the Beast.
Currently, Highgate is guarded by the Maraketh, the Beast is contained deep within the mines by the Deshret Seal and Highgate's aqueducts are blockaded by countless sunken ships.
But with the rising threat of the Beast's awakening again, the exile must break through these barriers and venture into the heart of the Beast itself, lest Wraeclast risk facing another Cataclysm.

Act 5-Oriath:
In Oriath, an uprising of the slaves was brewing for quite some time. The death of the Beast provided the perfect time for the slaves, most of them from Karui origin, to finally rise up and take Overseer's Tower with a sight set upon overthrowing the theocracy of Oriath. Their leader Utula has some intriguing beliefs about the Karui god of corruption Kitava, who aided him while in captivity. He claims this god is not as malicious as others think and the god knows exactly what it is like to be imprisoned.

After Dominus went to Wraeclast, Avarius took his place as the high templar continuing the theocracy in Oriath. The Beast's death brought many changes to his life. Mainly that the god of Oriath, Innocence, awakes and descends inhabiting the high templar. His first task is putting out the slave revolt. You must remove Avarius from power. But will it be the end or just the beginning of something else, like the Beast's death?