Path of Exile's new expansion lets you build your own bite-sized hard mode

pcgamer.com:

Path of Exile, more than any action-RPG I’ve played, wants you to set the terms of your own suffering. With a hugely customizable endgame and quarterly events like a double-or-nothing gamblers arena, there’s a major focus on choosing how you challenge yourself in exchange for loot. This May’s upcoming expansion, Sentinel, brings what looks like a more direct new way to challenge yourself: a satchel full of consumable drones that empower your enemies while injecting them full of bonus items.

For players rolling new characters in this league, you’ll quickly find Sentinels dropping as loot from monsters. Each of these little drones has a color denoting its behavior, a power level and (as always in PoE) a variety of modifiers and perks that change how it behaves. These drones are equipped in special slots with their own hotkeys and can be deployed at almost any time during combat to spice up your current encounter.

A short but rewarding burst of Hard Mode, ideally—or an embarrassingly self-inflicted death if you get cocky.

Red ‘Stalker’ Sentinels hover near you for a minute or so, buffing any enemy they spot, making for a relatively controllable rampage. Blue ‘Pandemonium’ Sentinels go off immediately, buffing every enemy on screen and sometimes beyond. Yellow ‘Apex’ Sentinels behave like red ones, but will only target rare, unique or boss baddies while leaving the fodder alone. Each type of Sentinel can only be deployed once per area, so it’s up to you to pick which fights to spice up.

Sentinels do eventually run out of battery power after multiple uses, and because Apple have apparently taken hold of Wraeclast too, there’s no easy way to recharge them. A new crafting item called a Power Core will let you scrap two drained