Grim Dawn - Full Release on Thursday

The release of Grim Dawn is scheduled for this Thursday. With build 31 being released now. There is a really lengthy list of all the changes to the game, so check out the link for details.

After all these years, we have finally arrived at the finish line. Build 31 marks the last pre-release build for Grim Dawn, and it is here! We are proud of the work the team has put in to bring you the game and we hope that you enjoy the culmination of our efforts.

With this update, we have polished nearly every aspect of Grim Dawn, from performance and environments to class balance and itemization. You can now play through the main storyline with fully-voiced NPCs and start a new character with our animated intro. Achievements have also been unlocked for the achievement hunters out there.

On Kickstarter this update showed as well:

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are finally nearing the end of the first and longest leg of this epic journey. Thinking of all the support we received from backers on KS to help make this possible, I felt this would be the most fitting place to first announce the release date. Grim Dawn will be officially released from Early Access this Thursday February 25th!

Thanks Couch and Xian.

More information.

So how long is the game for someone who only wants to finish the story and not grind crap?
Good job on getting finally at the end, was announced in 2008 i think haha.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
So how long is the game for someone who only wants to finish the story and not grind crap?
Good job on getting finally at the end, was announced in 2008 i think haha.

Probably 20+ hours if you don't explore everything and play only on normal difficulty.

Are they going to kickstart(er) their next game (which I believe is more grim dawn) ?

No information about that so far. The expansion is not going to be kickstarted.

It's been a long time since I tried this one (and funded it for that matter). Really enjoyed it at the time, looking forward to the final version.

Originally Posted by sea
It's been a long time since I tried this one (and funded it for that matter). Really enjoyed it at the time, looking forward to the final version.

And I am looking forward to final version of TToN

Yeah, I'll be playing this again after I finish my current Oblivion run. I really enjoyed the game when I last played it a year or so ago.

Originally Posted by you
Are they going to kickstart(er) their next game (which I believe is more grim dawn) ?

There's no info on their other game yet other than the fact that it exists and they have been hiring for it. The expansion is a separate project and already funded.

Yeah! I'm looking forward to it.

Well worth the wait.

Originally Posted by Archangel
Probably 20+ hours if you don't explore everything and play only on normal difficulty.

I think Steam has me at 26 hours right now, but that includes a few hours of testing the game out during an early build. Anyway, I think there is still a lot left for me to do, right now I have a level 41 character I believe, and still can't defeat the boss in the dungeon you can't teleport out of. I would probably hedge on saying it is 30+ if someone were to ask me, maybe closer to 40. But I also got 80 hours out of Pillars of Eternity (really needed to defeat the Audra Dragon under Od Nua). Anyway, the time is definitely been worth it.

I believe that this was the very first game I ever backed on Kickstarter, and it had an expected release date of August 2013. I haven't played it yet on Early Access, as I wanted to wait for the official release since I rarely play games twice. From what I understand, they went well above and beyond what was promised on Kickstarter, so I do not begrudge them a late release.

Cool. Nice change log, and it HAS been a long time waiting for this. Not sure where this now fits in my backlog of death.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Cool. Nice change log, and it HAS been a long time waiting for this. Not sure where this now fits in my backlog of death.

Backlog of death. How appropriate! After the day I had I look forward to mayhem. Too bad I'm too weak in ESO to kill in PVP.

Me neither. I am not a VR 16 nightblade. :/

Of all things the change I love most about patch 31 is the removal of the iron pick up frame stutter. Not sure if they just removed an animation or optimized something else.

Also, some of their balance changes caused me to toss some points into a slightly larger variety of skills.

They've improved the game quite a bit along the way, but ultimately I think it's pretty bland and generic.

It suffers the same focus on a small handful of active skills supported by a ton of passives as TQ did.

That means the core combat doesn't evolve very much as you progress - and I'm finding the setting and environments dreary and depressing.

I never expected Diablo 3 to be my favorite ARPG for long - but I'm afraid it still is.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
They've improved the game quite a bit along the way, but ultimately I think it's pretty bland and generic.

It suffers the same focus on a small handful of active skills supported by a ton of passives as TQ did.

That means the core combat doesn't evolve very much as you progress - and I'm finding the setting and environments dreary and depressing.

I never expected Diablo 3 to be my favorite ARPG for long - but I'm afraid it still is.

Really could not disagree more. It may not have the same variety of skills that Path of Exile has, but character development here is pretty strong and it is a better and more interesting ARPG than Diablo III in almost every way except for graphics. D3 is just a shinier version of the colossal turd that it was on release and is now a completely boring slogfest with the worst character development of any ARPG. Plus it is completey levelled to the character level which is completely game wrecking. It has extremely high production values, but is SOOOO boring. It is a pretty lousy game.

I find Grim Dawn better in almost every way, and there is more to this game than using lots of skills. With the different skill trees, devotion system, and lots of interesting skills on components and items, mid to late game you use a similar amount of skills to D3 and POE for that matter, but character development is interesting and rewarding and Grim Dawn is flat out fun. Farming Torment levels on D3 is not and that is really all there is to do.

It is a dark setting but overall Grim Dawn is a far far superior game than D3. I do not think it is even close.

Originally Posted by johnnysd
Really could not disagree more. It may not have the same variety of skills that Path of Exile has, but character development here is pretty strong and it is a better and more interesting ARPG than Diablo III in almost every way except for graphics. D3 is just a shinier version of the colossal turd that it was on release and is now a completely boring slogfest with the worst character development of any ARPG. Plus it is completey levelled to the character level which is completely game wrecking. It has extremely high production values, but is SOOOO boring. It is a pretty lousy game.

I find Grim Dawn better in almost every way, and there is more to this game than using lots of skills. With the different skill trees, devotion system, and lots of interesting skills on components and items, mid to late game you use a similar amount of skills to D3 and POE for that matter, but character development is interesting and rewarding and Grim Dawn is flat out fun. Farming Torment levels on D3 is not and that is really all there is to do.

It is a dark setting but overall Grim Dawn is a far far superior game than D3. I do not think it is even close.

Fair enough.

Personally, I'm a big fan of active skills - and Diablo 3 has FAR more of those.

Also, after the loot 2.0 patch - legendary loot in Diablo 3 is a lot more interesting to me than anything I've found in Grim Dawn. That's where the character building aspect of Diablo 3 comes into play.

The large Devotion tree is almost entirely made up of more passives. Passives are boring to me. It's like the Paragon system in D3 and most of Path of Exiles tree. Zzzz.

The moment to moment gameplay of Diablo 3 is so superior to Grim Dawn I lack the words.

Still, to each his own

That said, I do like the superior complexity of both Grim Dawn and Path of Exile. It's just too bad that they're both similarly dreary and depressing. Combat in Grim Dawn is a snorefest if I ever saw one.