Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn is one of the most flexible games I’ve ever played. With some hitches here and there, I was able to naturally build towards the character that I had imagined just off of the initial thumbnail. Although the setting maybe isn’t the greatest, and the plot is forgettable, once the cogs of your avatar start fitting together, this game blossoms. It rewards creativity; never once did the idea of looking up “builds” cross my mind, because everything I was doing worked.

You’re greeted by a well animated intro after you’ve done the extent of your initial character customization, all of which is choosing either male or female, a difficulty level, and a name. The world of Cairn sucks ass. Objectively. This is not a world you want to be in. It’s past the part of falling apart, potentially past the point of rebuilding anything worthwhile either. Small groups of humans are left, trying to deal with the demonic presence in any way they can, carving out their tiny chunks out of this smouldering waste of a world.

It’s unfortunate how well the intro acts as a carrot on a stick, because said carrot adapts to Cairn - it goes bad fairly quickly. The animated intro is a one-off; for the rest of your time with Grim Dawn you’re going to be getting your plot either through NPCs, or pieces of written lore strewn around the world. Taking the step of actually opening the books up will net you bonus XP. I wish the same could be said about the NPCs you interact with, because it seems like they put all the well voiced characters up front; the further you progress, the more you run into characters dropping flat one-liners, with empty performances that scream “Jim from facilities, can you do us a favour and record some lines?” There wasn’t enough here to keep me from switching Grim Dawn’s appropriate soundtrack off, putting on my own beats, and clicking through quest givers as fast as I could.

After killing some zombies you’ll hit level two, your first mastery choice. These masteries don’t restrict any loot from one another, it’s simply a choice between six distinct skill trees. I went with the demolitionist to start, as the guy in the picture was holding a gun, and I wanted to do the same. I don’t really enjoy dealing with mana, so I started leaning into the passive skills; these skills take a bite out of your overall mana pool, which I can imagine can become a management issue, but again, the way that I wanted to play, they suited my needs. Enemies that enter a radius around Don would start taking damage, be it either from the radiating flames, meteorites, or from the orbiting green skull. I wanted to play with guns, so ideally I’d like to keep baddies at a distance. It became clear to me which skills I needed to go for in order to plug up any gaps.

You start to get some more coloured loot, apply some augments you’ve found along the way, complete some rescue quests, and become much beefier. That sweet new belt that boosts your characters spirit stat an obscene amount, to the point where other loot is dependant on having this belt equipped, or the drops of green goop that you can combine to not only imbue any and all weapons with poison damage, but eventually grant a whole new skill simply by having the augment installed, the myriad of options for your character start to peak through.

Devil’s Crossing now has been populated with smiths and faction vendors; smiths will not only craft new equipment for you, they can help you break apart items and keep what you need, so any augments you might have applied earlier on can be recycled and reused. Faction vendors have their wares gated behind reputation levels. After a twenty five hour playthrough, I only got access to the first tier of the starting faction.

If you love ARPGs, there is a ton of content for you in this game. If you’re like me, and enjoy the occasional click-em-up, the faction system provides a peak behind the curtain. You can spend a solid chunk of time just hovering over items you are nowhere near the ballpark of being able to equip, let alone purchase. After wrapping up mainline quests which all net you reputation, a bounties table soon opens up, and you can grind more rep that way. The baddies are incorporated in the faction system; continually grind one area, and eventually the mobs become bigger, stronger, and of course, begin dropping shinier loot.

Crate Entertainment is a phoenix studio based out of the ashes of Iron Lore Entertainment. Iron Lore developed Titan Quest, which was notable at the time for having the player choose a second mastery at level ten, which is a returning mechanic in Grim Dawn. There are now two full skill trees you have access to. Modders have gone the length of incorporating the masteries found in Titan Quest to Grim Dawn, which would mean fifteen masteries total. Mix this in with the devotion system; another layer that grants even more perks and skills, scattered at shrines around Cairn.

Around level fifteen, I found a blueprint to give Don the ability to dual wield pistols. I dropped everything I was doing and turned my focus on making Don the fire breathing, John Woo inspired double pistoled gunslinger I imagined. And I got there, without any help. If this is the first kind of these games you’re jumping into, I’m hesitant to give it a thumbs up. The setting and story didn’t quite do it for me, it quickly became a game I was playing with something else on the other monitor. However, if you’re like me, someone interested in the genre, someone who’s played Diablo 2 ages ago, someone who thinks these are cool, relaxing experiences, I simply cannot recommend Grim Dawn enough. The flexibility of the systems Crate Entertainment have put in place is incredible, and if you’re ok with clicking on drones and drones of baddies, grab this quick.