It’s wild to say that, 10 years ago today, an upstart studio shipped a little game called Grim Dawn. What’s mind-blowing to us is that that game went on to not only become a success beyond our wildest dreams at the time, but to become a staple in the ARPG genre.
Grim Dawn’s success enabled Crate Entertainment to grow from a studio of just 8 people to a team of 29 today, with 4 projects currently in development. Your early support has allowed us to not only stay independent from publishers, but to pour our passion into each of our creations.
Likewise, when we started, we never could have imagined that 10 years later Grim Dawn would not only still be receiving major updates but it would have another expansion on the way. Our engineers bent the old engine to their will. Even as recently as last year, we addressed bugs that have been there since Titan Quest. Across 82 updates both big and small, we refined and polished, revamping everything from melee animations to how Nemesis bosses spawn on the map. We overhauled loot tables and added loot filters, revamped UIs and smoothed out the difficulty unlocks. Now with v1.3.0 on the way, truly nothing feels off the table to make the game better for you.
After 10 years, Grim Dawn will have a modern scaleable UI, something once thought impossible in an engine created when a 4:3 aspect ratio was still common-place and 1080p was a luxury. An overhauled stash will greatly expand how you organize your awesome loot. And, dare I say, more surprises are still in store for our Fangs of Asterkarn pre-patch.
When we shipped Forgotten Gods, Grim Dawn’s second expansion, in 2019, we thought that sales would naturally decline and the game would be finished. And it seemed like a fitting end, with some of our most epic boss encounters yet and an infinite endgame mode to test the limits of your builds. But the Grim Dawn community surprised us again when in 2023 we found ourselves looking at growing player counts instead. Despite having 3 games already in development, we knew we had to reassemble the team for one more loop around the sun. As it turned out… that may have been a bit of an understatement as we enter 2026!
But the wait is nearly over. Fangs of Asterkarn development is in its final stretch, and while we know for certain that This time it will be Grim Dawn’s final hurrah, calling it just another expansion is a gross understatement. Your journey into the land of the Kurn will span over 5.5 square kilometers. For reference, that’s 76% the size of the base game, 170% as big as Ashes of Malmouth and 223% as large as Forgotten Gods.
You will contend with over 60 bosses and minibosses, most of them featuring unique models and animations. You will gather over 370 new unique items and 116 Monster Infrequents, with more custom models and less retextures than ever before. 8 new Nemesis monsters will haunt your ever step, and 3 new super bosses will make your builds weep for buffs. You will customize your potions in a brand new alchemy system and refine your gear to its peak potential with awakened Epic items and Affix Rerolling.
And you will need all this if you are to endure the challenges of a fully-customizable brand-new game mode that will make the entirety of the massive 18 sq km world your endgame playground.
A legendary 10th mastery will bring the number of class combos up to a staggering 45 and introduce shapeshifting, a system we once thought was untenable in this old engine. New skill mechanics for both you and your foes will add even more variety to Grim Dawn’s already vast number of builds, shaking up old archetypes and introducing new ones.
When we wrap up Fangs of Asterkarn, Grim Dawn will not be going out with a bang, it will be a tremendous roar that will cement the game as a cornerstone of the ARPG genre. We are immensely proud of everything that’s in store for you and can’t wait to get it into your hands in just a few months.
Now if you’ll excuse us, we have an expansion to ship!
-Your team at Crate Entertainment
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