I think GD already has everything that would make sense in terms of its lore and game mechanics. More masteries would just be replications of ideas from the existing masteries. Something Blizzard would do to boost microtransactions.
That being said, 10th mastery should most definitely be pets. There are only 3 pet masteries making only 3 pet classes with other classes being only variations of single mastery builds. I would either vote for something like a dragon raider (one big pet) or an arcane summoner (elementals, aether wisps, genies, etc.).
As pointed out before, they’ve already had a lot of suggestions. And I very much doubt a 3rd expansion will happen; a sequel in a few years is more likely.
More like 3 or 4, perhaps even less. It wasn’t until mid 2012 after the Kickstarter that medierra had enough funds to hire a proper team and begin to get the ball rolling, and rolling it was by the time they hit Steam EA late 2013 where it released in early 2016 a bit over 2 years later.
Now with a good solid team from the outset and depending if they decided to go with a “newer” more established engine with more modern tools and functions I think they are more than capable of working on projects faster if they wish.
Counting the city builder game they’re working right now, I’d say 5 is a good estimate for GD2
I just hope that city game is also GD related to bridge the lore. I think we got enough factions existing currently for an RTS, or Crate could introduce more if they go the 4x route, those new factions would then appear on GD2. One can hope.
On the topic of 10th class. I support bloodsworn. We need a 4th pet class and a second ranged class. Bloodsworn seems to be the best fit for that. And how cool would it be if we can summon mini Gravas?
It has long been confirmed that the city builder is its own world and in no way related to GD’s world. The most you can hope for in that regard is perhaps easter egg references/nods.
Perhaps. I too was hoping for a Cairn tie-in in some fashion as I like it when devs world-build across different game genres much like Amplitude Studio did with their Endless universe. I think medierra wants to have more options available to explore outside of just one universe.
Medierra gave his philosophy/reasoning way back in November 2016.
"We do plan to keep working on Grim Dawn. How many expansions we produce just depends on how well the first expansion sells and how well GD itself continues to sell.
There is also a good a chance we’ll do GD2 at some point but, due to the age of the current engine, we either need to undertake some massive update work on it or start from scratch with a licensed engine, which would mean a massive amount of work writing all new gameplay code.
Given that we’re working on an expansion now, might do a second one and I’ve been working on ARPGs for 14 years now, I feel like I could use a bit of break before jumping right into GD2. Imagining exciting new features, systems and a whole new story arc take a lot of energy and passion. I’m happy continuing to work on and oversee content for GD but I feel like I need to recharge before I can give a whole new ARPG my all.
There are other genres of games I love and have always wanted to work on. I’d also like to work on something lower scope next, that requires less building of content and which won’t take too long to finish. I expect to be releasing this new project 12-18 months from now. Then after that, who knows, maybe it will be time for GD2. I won’t know until I get there. One thing I can say though is, I’d be a lot more excited to work on GD2 if we could get to a point where we had a lot more money to throw at it.
Someone mentioned that Banished / Anno town-builders were overcrowded but that looks like a wide open market compared to ARPG. Not only are there a lot of ARPGs coming out recently but players commit to a single one for much longer than games in other genres and it requires a ton of content and features to be competitive - more than almost any other genre of games. Then think about the fact that the ARPG genre has a franchise that is widely seen as “king” and is developed by one of the biggest, most well funded and widely respected companies in the industry. Everything is compared against Diablo and it’s hard to compete with a team that has virtually unlimited resources. Then Grinding Gear has around 5x the people we do and I doubt competing against a free-to-play game has helped our sales. Then there’s Torchlight (although it looks like their next game isn’t an ARPG), Marvel Heroes, Van Helsing, Victor Vran, maybe a TQ expansion or sequel from Nordic, Lineage Eternal (if that ever finishes), Wolcen and too many others to remember. Since the huge sales of D3, everyone and their mom seems to be making an ARPG these days. About the only thing worse would be deciding to make a MOBA.
Even with all that going on, I wouldn’t say it would prevent us from making GD2 but it certainly makes the level of competition in most other genres look a lot less daunting.
A big factor for working on something else though is that I don’t think it is good to keep all our eggs in one basket, as a studio. Our primary goal is to keep the company alive so we can keep being independent and making games. While it’s certainly possible to focus on one franchise and stay alive for a long time doing it, it’s riskier having all your future dependent on the continued success of one game property in one genre. Diversifying the types of games we can make and the IPs we own is a good way for us to better secure out future.
Beyond just branching out to work on other genres, it has always been a goal of mine to be able to work on concurrent projects. Not only do we not want to be pigeon-holed into one genre but I think it’s important for us to be able to work on multiple projects at time. That way, we’re not just counting on the success of a single big release to keep us alive, where if it under-performs, it could take years to course-correct and finish another project (years we likely wouldn’t have). This also helps to increase the efficiency of the studio, as we can shift people around based on the needs of a project at any give time, instead of having lulls at the beginning and end of a single project, where not everyone is needed at full capacity. Another factor is that people get burnt out working on one thing for too many years. When people get burnt out, they leave and look for something new. I feel like we have a great team and I want to keep them engaged with fresh new projects and not solely grinding away on ARPGs for the next 20 years.
Since we would like to keep making content for GD, we’ve brought on some new people for that, to keep up the level of energy and enthusiasm (or new old people in the case of Grava, aka Josh Glavine). We’ll keep making content for GD as long as it’s financially viable. GD2 is a definite possibility but whether / when that happens depends on how things progress in the ARPG genre and internally for us at Crate over the next year or two. We also have some ideas for GD related games that are set in that universe and will share some mechanics but are not quite ARPGs.
You’ll also be hearing about at least one totally new project in the next year though."
As for the town builder, what little big M has let slip is in this thread.
If/when Crate do decide to start work on a GD2 I doubt we’ll hear about it early on. Despite everyone loving the way Crate have kept the fans up to date with wha’s going on with GD1 Medierra didn’t seem keen on doing the same on other projects.
I can see his point, but that was years ago and we have a great team now so I can’t see them releasing anything that looks too awful. I think the communication between Crate and the fans has been a big selling point in a lot of ways and it would be a shame if they don’t consider capitalising on that for another project at some point in the future, whether that’s GD2 or something else. Given that word of mouth has played it’s part in the “marketing” side of GD, not taking advantage of that seems crazy to me.
My opinion we don’t need 10th mastery. Let Crate finish the 5th rogue dungeon/content update they seem proper as well as balancing items/sets, they deserve the rest and then move on to other things.
yes, with some traps and maybe a few pets, like a pack of hounds. ranged would need more support and pierce and bleed too. that said i’m also on the consensus that we won’t see any more content for GD after the 5th roguelike and i’m totally fine with that, the game feels already complete (aside from the aforementioned dungeon ofc).
