I’m not even that far into my first ever playthrough of Grim Dawn and I can already see why I’ve heard people praise this game for the last 10 years. It’s old, sure, but it’s a surprisingly tight action RPG that despite its age hasn’t been left to rust.
The developers at Crate Entertainment have kept Grim Dawn from feeling like an action RPG that came out a decade ago. The quality-of-life additions in its final expansion, Fangs of Asterkarn, do a lot of the heavy-lifting, but even visually the game doesn’t look that far removed from an older World of Warcraft zone.
I’ve been playing quite a lot of Path of Exile 2 lately and was a little scared that Grim Dawn would be far too archaic for me. I think a major reason that hasn’t been the case is that Fangs of Asterkarn gave it full WASD movement support, a control scheme I have a hard time letting go of in these types of games. It works so flawlessly in Grim Dawn that I would’ve assumed it was there from the start if I hadn’t read the patch notes.
My initial class choice inadvertently gave me a taste of some of the OG experience. I went with an occultist, thinking it would be fun to play the closest thing to a spell-casting warlock that I typically play in other games. What I actually ended up with was a character who spent most of their time unloading rifle rounds into monsters rather than infecting them with the plague. I’m sure there are plenty more spells to work with later on, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be a bulletmancer.
Fangs of Asterkarn, like any good action RPG expansion, adds a new class to Grim Dawn: the berserker. At first, I thought this was the game’s take on a shapeshifting druid, which is an archetype I typically avoid. But then I clicked the skill tree node that let me transform into a werewolf and realized that I might’ve found an exception to the rule.
I spent most of the time with my occultist dragging monsters around in a circle to plink away their health. Playing as my werewolf, I launched at them like I’m the bullet, turning everything into a red mist on impact. It was like playing a different action RPG as I darted from monster pack to monster pack at twice the speed as my previous character. Even though Grim Dawn allows you to pick up a secondary class at level 10, berserker was clearly the better option to start with. Now I’m cruising through the first act and starting to see the game unfold.
I’m basically playing the villain in some direct-to-video horror flick and it’s too silly to stop.
While I was feeling experimental, I decided to see what else berserkers can do. This is when I found something even better than a werewolf. Grim Dawn lets you turn into a big crow who can conjure massive waves of ice that shred enemies apart. There is zero explanation for why the crow is a wizard, which is the best part about it. Going crow mode isn’t as fast as being a werewolf, but it looks so ridiculous that I’m finding it hard to go back. I’m basically playing the villain in some direct-to-video horror flick and it’s too silly to stop.
Looking ahead in the skill tree I see that there are some ways to blend the transformations, as well as your human form, for even more power. I’m aiming to try some kind of low-life build where my damage goes way up while injured. And if I know my action RPGs well enough, there will probably be some unique item that can push this idea even further. I’m not anywhere close to the endgame—where a lot of Fangs of Asterkarn’s new additions live—but I’m excited to see what toys I can play with.
I wouldn’t be saying any of this if the game felt too clunky and dated to play. Grim Dawn absolutely holds up to modern standards and even has convenience that I wish newer games had. You pick up piles of crafting materials and can press a button to send them all to your stash from anywhere in the world. I appreciate some chill inventory management here and there, but it’s great knowing the stuff that isn’t gear won’t have me crawling back to town every 10 minutes.
It’s also nice knowing that nothing about Grim Dawn is seasonal. I can load the game up whenever and play it at my own pace without having to worry that I’m going to miss out on some temporary activity. As much as I like seasonal action RPGs like Diablo 4, I do think that format tends to make players worry too much about efficiency and seeing everything each season has to offer before the excitement fizzles out.
If this is the end of Grim Dawn as a game in active development (although I’m sure patches will keep coming), it’s an impressive finale. Far too many games get abandoned in a state that makes them extremely hard to get into as a new player. Because Crate Entertainment made sure to massage the kinks out of the game over the years, I’ve been convinced it’s worth keeping an eye on to see what it’s going to deliver next. According to its founder, Arthur Bruno, Grim Dawn 2 is already in the early stages of development.
Fangs of Asterkarn is available now on Steam.
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