And this, I feel, is what allows Grim Dawn to truly shine. Only, here, there’s an overwhelming wealth of story that’s been written into the game-an unusual addition for a lootgrind kind of game. Crate’s roster reads as a sort of who’s who of classic ARPG and Dungeon Crawler devs. It’s no surprise, really, that we’d get a new-age game with a decidedly old-school feel. There is a beginning and an end and that’s a good thing. Make no mistake Grim Dawn is a game, not a theorycrafting playground as so many ARPGs seem to be as of late. Founded by Arthur Bruno (the mastermind behind Titan Quest) and created from the ashes of Iron Lore Entertainment, Crate have taken the Titan Quest formula, updated it for 2016, prayed heavily to the Old Gods for influence, and delivered a Lovecraft-themed ARPG that’s of a calibre that we simply don’t see anymore. Grim Dawn is the first game to come from Crate Entertainment, but make no mistake, this is not some amateur dev team. For a comparison, 500 hours is very nearly what I have in Skyrim and Fallout 4.
More than three hundred of those have been in the past five months and wow, has it ever come a long way. Looking at my Steam account, I have just a hair under five hundred hours clocked since the first backer Alpha in May of 2013. It’s been a long road for Grim Dawn in its travels to full release from its Kickstarter debut nearly four years ago and my, has it been enjoyable.
