Developer & Publisher: Crate Entertainment
Platform: PC (Steam) & Xbox
Genre: Action RPG
Launch Date: Feburary 25th 2016
Price: $24.99
Media Contact: Michael@vicariouspr.com
Game Overview
Grim Dawn is an Action-RPG with some more traditional role-playing elements such as quests with choice and consequence. Along with the expected troves of epic loot and complex character development, players can also help rebuild towns to unlock new services and earn favor with different NPC factions to unlock new quests and exclusive rewards.
Development
Grim Dawn was developed by a ten-person team headed by Titan Quest lead gameplay designer Arthur Bruno. Started in late 2009 as a passion project backed by die-hard TQ fans, it was eventually brought to Kickstarter and earned enough funding to hire on several former 38 Studios developers, in the wake of that company’s closure. In November 2013, Grim Dawn saw its first public release on Steam Early Access. It became Content and Feature complete in December 2015 with a full release in February 2016. Throughout Early Access, Grim Dawn maintained a high user rating and is currently sitting at 94%.
Back Story
Set in the Victorian-era, apocalyptic world of Cairn, the player assumes the role of a “taken;” one previously possessed by an Aetherial, the wraithlike beings who have orchestrated the downfall of humanity. Gasping their last breath in a hangman’s noose, the Aetherial flees the player’s body and they’re cut down moments before death and given a chance for redemption. The experience of Aetherial possession has left the player with certain heightened powers and the ability to capture enemy “rift gates”.
The once-proud Erulan Empire has been laid to waste in a war between the Aetherial invaders and minions of the Dying God, Ch’thon, who have risen to challenge them. Multiple factions all now vie for supremacy, each with their own dark intent.
Desperation has driven human survivors to extremes and players will have to exercise caution in dealing with unstable or deceptive characters. All is not what it seems and tough decisions will need to be made that can leave a significant impact on the world or their reputation. Strangers on the road, families in desperation and even entire villages may live or perish based on the player’s actions.
Features
- Dual Class – Combine any of six distinct classes with over 25 skills and modifiers per class. Base classes include Soldier, Demolitionist, Occultist, Nightblade, Arcanist and Shaman.
- Hundreds of Item Skills – Augment your class build with a diverse array of over 250 unique skills granted by items and equipment add-ons.
- Collect hundreds of Items – Common, magical, rare, epic, and legendary classes of loot. Plus over 20,000 possible magical affix combinations and over 200 rare affixes.
- Quests with Choice and Consequence – You will face tough decisions that leave significant impacts upon the world. Strangers on the road, desperate families, and even entire villages may live or perish based on your actions. Currently over 35 quests with 75+ lore notes to be collected.
- Friendly and Enemy Factions – Earn favor with human factions to unlock additional quest lines, vendor discounts, and special faction-based items and augments. Some neutral factions can be turned into allies but aiding one will make the enemy of another. Hostile factions will remember your deeds and deepen their hatred of you, sending out large packs and elite heroes to hunt you down.
- Devotion, an additional layer of skill customization allows you to acquire bonuses and powerful secondary effects for your class skills. These are unlocked from a giant constellation map with points acquired by finding and restoring destroyed or corrupted shrines hidden throughout the world.
- Rebuild the World – Help human enclaves survive and flourish by securing vital necessities, rebuilding structures and rescuing survivors who can then lend their services to your cause.
- 4 Person Multiplayer – Connect with Friends or make new allies in glorious multiplayer. Multiplayer encounters will put your teamwork to the ultimate challenge.
- Fast-paced Visceral Combat – Enemy blood spatters, ragdoll physics and satisfying enemy death effects. Smash in doors and fight house to house, leaving a path of demolished furniture in your wake.
- Rotatable Camera – If you choose to survey the full beauty of the world and always fight from the most optimal angle. Levels are still designed so that players are not forced to rotate the camera; it is purely optional.
- Secrets and Perils Abound – 200+ Enemy heroes and bosses, hand-configured with their own unique arrays of deadly skills. 20+ secret areas hidden behind crumbling walls, hidden gaps, and mysterious locked doors. Explode obstacles or repair structures to open new paths.
- Rogue-Like Dungeons – Descend into special locked challenge dungeons that require a rare crafted key, where enemy levels increase as you progress and player teleport is disabled. There is no way out except to complete the dungeon or die trying.
- Dynamic Weather – The world is brought to life with region-specific climates and a variety of weather effects. A sunny day can cloud over with mild rain showers that builds into a booming thunderstorm. Variable wind gusts blow grass and affect objects like windmills.
- Recipe Based Crafting – Collect over 250 crafting recipes that allow you to combine salvaged components into unique crafted items and then, later, use those basic crafted items with higher-tiered recipes to complete items of amazing power.
- Reclaim Skill Points – The ability to pay to reclaim points alleviates the fear and frustration of having to make early, uninformed skill choices that could permanently gimp a character.