Hideout Guide

Introduction

Hideouts were added to the game alongside the Forsaken Masters mini-expansion. While Hideouts did not offer the exhaustive amount of vanity options and customization that they do in the current era of Path of Exile, every player could agree that it felt downright awesome to have your own home base.

One of the greatest aspects of Hideouts is the amount of style and flair that the player can imbue them with. There are hundreds of decorations, and many of them have multiple variants, resulting in thousands and thousands of different possibilities for you to experiment with.

Once you have reached the end-game, your Hideout will serve as the main hub for the majority of end-game activity, the main exceptions being the Azurite Mine and the Labyrinth. Most everything else can be found and accessed from the Hideout itself, such as end-game Mapping, The Temple of Atzoatl, Immortal Syndicate hideouts, the Crafting Bench, your personal and guild stashes, and more.

In this guide we will explore a few of the fundamentals of hideouts, such as how to obtain the different variants, acquiring decorations, and essentials to incorporate.

Unlocking the Hideout

If it is your first time playing Path of Exile, you will have the opportunity to unlock and create your first Hideout in Act II. Once you rescue Helena from the Chamber of Sins she will allow you to select your own Hideout.
Helena is the hub for all things related to your hideout — if you acquire new Hideouts, you can change and swap them as you wish by speaking with her. Helena and all other Masters can be invited through the hideout decorations window.

Your Hideout can be visited any time from a Waypoint. One of the unique advantages of Hideouts over Cities is that skills are usable within them, and auras are enabled. This allows you to get live previews of changes to tooltip DPS when you swap out gear or gem links, which is a true quality of life bonus.

Visiting Others’ Hideouts

Not only is your own hideout an essential part of the game, but players that choose to play in trade leagues will spend a fair amount of time visiting the hideouts of other players as well. Virtually all trade is conducted within the hideout of the seller — when you join a party to buy an item, it is common trade etiquette for a buyer to enter the seller’s hideout and wait for them to trade you.

To enter the hideout of party members or friends, simply right-click on their frame in-game and select Visit Hideout or click on the blue icon on their party frame. You can also adjust the permissions for your own hideout by pressing the “Decorations” button at the bottom of the screen and changing Hideout Options.

Hideout Variants

There are many different hideouts available, and several more that can be purchased from the microtransaction store. Certain hideouts can only be unlocked in specific areas of the game, and the level of rarity varies depending on the hideout in question. When you encounter a hideout in-game the entrance is marked with a blue fleur de lis on your map and mini map. Enter and clear the hideout of monsters to unlock the tileset. Once you have unlocked a hideout tileset it is yours in perpetuity, persisting across all characters and all leagues.

Here is an alphabetical list of the currently attainable hideout variants and their locations of acquisition:

Hideout Tileset	Area of Acquisition	Rarity
Alpine Hideout	Summit Map	Rare
Arboreal Hideout	Terrace Map	Rare
Backstreet Hideout	Arcade Map	Common
Baleful Hideout	The Chambers of Sins Level 2 (Act VII)	Common
Battle-Scarred Hideout	Promenade Map	Common
Cartographer’s Hideout	The Templar Laboratory (Epilogue)	Common
Celestial Hideout	The Shaper’s Realm	Rare
Coastal Hideout	Atoll Map	Common
Coral Hideout	The Cavern of Anger (Act VI)	Common
Corrupted Hideout	MTX Store	N/A
Desert Hideout	The Oasis (Act IX)	Common
Doomguard Hideout	Doomguard Supporter Pack	N/A
Divided Hideout	The Twilight Temple	Rare
Eclipsed Hideout	MTX Store	N/A
Enlightened Hideout	Academy	Common
Excavated Hideout	The Crystal Veins (Act IV)	Common
Glacial Hideout	Iceberg	Rare
Glimmerwood Hideout	MTX Store	N/A
Immaculate Hideout	Ivory Temple	Common
Innocent Hideout	MTX Store	N/A
Lush Hideout	The Dread Thicket (Act II)	Common
Luxurious Hideout	The Bath House (Act VIII)	Common
Overgrown Hideout	Orchard Map	Rare
Sanguine Hideout	Crimson Temple Map	Rare
Shaped Hideout	MTX Store	N/A
Skeletal Hideout	The Ossuary (Act X)	Common
Stately Hideout	Oriath Square, The Ruined Square (Act V)	Common
Sunken Hideout	Sunken City Map	Rare
Sunspire Hideout	Sunspire Supporter Pack	N/A
Undercity Hideout	The Sewers (Act III)	Common
Unearthed Hideout	Graveyard	Common

The Rare tilesets are typically acquired from high tier Maps, while many of the Common tilesets can be obtained while leveling and throughout the main story. While there is no official data on the frequency of hideout spawns, “Common” hideouts are guaranteed to appear in the listed zone or can usually be obtained within several runs through the area. “Rare” hideouts, on the other hand, often take tens and sometimes hundreds of runs before they are encountered, though it is known that the spawn rates vary depending on the hideout in question.

Purchasing Decorations

You can purchase any decoration in the Decoration’s windows. This has changed and you no longer need to gather favour with masters to purchase items. There is an infinite amount of favour to purchase decorations.

You can purchase as many of the same decorations as you like, allowing you to place multiple of the same decoration should you desire. To place decorations, simply click the Decorations tab at the bottom of the screen when you are in your hideout, then click on your decoration of choice to select it.

Clicking again in an open area will place the decoration, and allow you to move it by clicking and dragging the object, or to rotate it by clicking and dragging on the outer yellow circle.

Decorative Variants

A large number of decorations in Path of Exile have multiple variants that you can select from to give your aesthetic a little more variety. You can see the number of variants a decoration has before purchasing it simply by mousing over the item.

After placing the decoration, simply scroll your mouse wheel while hovering over the centre of the yellow circle to preview the different variants before deciding on your choice. Decorations can be changed at any time to any variant, so there is no pressure and experimentation is encouraged.

Removing Decorations

If you want to remove the decoration from your Hideout, simple click the Edit button and select the decoration you want to remove.

Advanced Editing

Hideouts are ultimately an expression of self, and targeted advice on how to set up your hideout for you is not possible. One of the recent features introduced, however, is the ability to import and export your own and others’ hideouts.

Some players go to incredible extremes to create effects that hardly seem possible when previewing the decorations individually. This is usually done by overlaying several different decorations, or lighting effects, to make new pseudo-textures. Certain combinations of decorations may look radically different than when they are placed side by side.

While overlaying decoration upon decoration can get very confusing while editing, some of the effects you can create are truly sublime. The main limits are the level of time you are willing to invest and your imagination!

Conclusion

Hideouts are an essential piece of the game, even from a purely pragmatic perspective. They function as the central end-game hub for mapping, trade between players, the masters within the game, and more.

While your hideout is essential to practical success within Path of Exile, it can also be used as a means of freedom of expression and creativity. Since you spend so much time in your hideout, many players love to spruce it up with something they find awesome, or to show off for friends and prospective buyers.

Good luck experimenting with your hideout, and feel free to share any pictures of your handiwork in the comments below!