I was also hoping that these rewards would only be available in ascended mode, but if you fall on all difficulties, I don’t see an incentive to play the new mode.
You could seal entire parts of your worlds away, or spawn characters and monsters exclusively based on what materials are inserted, all while adjusting the difficulty accordingly. Similarly, you can add new recipes to the altar using materials unique to your mod.
So many good changes and possibilities. Thank you for improving Grim Dawn continuously.
Oooooh gosh my two favorite games Terraria and Grim Dawn both defer their update from 2024 to 2025😭 How should I get through that century😭
This is insane! How incredible to add this much to an expansion that wasn’t even supposed to be! Thank you so so much. Crate once again proving that they are some of the absolute best devs out there 
3 Likes
I absolutely can’t wait for SR-60~80 campaign. This will add so much depth for long-term players!
1 Like
Ehhhh. Darksiders 2 was basically an ARPG with a sky, Amalur too.
1 Like
Regular Rare items no longer being an auto-skip? Reminds me of how very well rolled rares in Diablo 2 could sometimes be better than uniques/sets. Which is a good thing.
Ever since MI’s started receiving massive modifiers to skills in AoM, normal rares became completely pointless. A completely trash MI that just happens to have a bonus to the skill you use is better than even the most perfect rare, 99% of the time. Often even over sets and uniques. Anything to make another rarity of items relevant again is a welcome change.
Also, I feel like making it so that only level 94 base rare/MI items drop when playing in Ultimate Ascension mode would be a good improvement. The absolutely inconsistent boundaries on what enemies drop only level 94 and which can also drop 84 has been a long running gripe of mine. And there is nothing more demoralizing than getting the “perfect rare/MI”, only to realize it spawned on a level 84 base item. If it was at least consistent, fine, but in the current state, chaos is a weak descriptor…
5 Likes
Also, I would like more things to distinguish the new game mode, but as many people as many opinions.
I like that the new altar can be accessed around lvl40 because for me during the level process this is generally the time where I’m starting Asterkarn and pumping points into nothing but mastery bar. The Asterkarn to Necropolis part of the game is really not that exciting and pumping points into mastery bar to get my next skill and keep spamming my currently maxed skill is also where I usually lose interest in a character. Hopefully this altar addition will spice up the leveling process, because leveling new characters seems to be the real endgame of GD
Ok,
I was holding my expectation but now I’m onboard on the hypetrain
1 Like
| Material | Loot bonuses | Monster bonuses |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Heart | Additional chance of Physical Items | +20% to all Damage +5% to Physical damage +50% Health |
| Celestial Essence | +30% chance to spawn The Dread | +80% Health to Minions +15 DA to Minions |
| Celetial Lotus | +8% chance to double rare items | +5% increased Sunder to Bosses +20% Health to Bosses |
New materials:
Ashes of Aw… (Awakening?)
Aspect of Be… (Beronath?)
Bloodbound Totem
Frozen Aster
10 Likes
Oh boy, can’t wait for Dread to spawn with Nemeses, it’s gonna be fun. 
5 Likes
Yes, keep cookin…keep cookin…everyone, let them cook.
1 Like
It would be cool if you could import builds with a string like they do on WoW retail. Just saying! Still incorporate the cost of redoing your build obviously. These changes look absolutely amazing and I just want 2025 to be here asap. I think im going to see about freezing myself like cartmen in south park did when he was waiting for a video game…seems like a great idea!
Thanks
Surp
With those new itemisation powercreep options is the player supposed to eventually zoom and “have fun” in that game mode with their even further beyond improved character, or is it supposed to always be a miserable(feel like trash) kind of experience? (for example, let’s say: fighting a faction Nemesis 3-4 minutes long fights if you fully juice the enemies disregarding you even using BiS possible and upgraded gear)?
I hope the game gets into the more dynamic direction rather into feeling like a dungeon crawler. So far Evade and Sunder have been good, in fact they’ve been so good, they even caused me to finally start reading news about future updates from the base game.
I hope, at least from my perspective, that I can see enemies do visual aoe indicators you are supposed to move away from in the future so that evade gets more love rather than just be a sunder-counterplay. Simply braindead melee facetanking yours “The Dread” while only jumping away once every minute like Grava-Thul’s balls type of gameplay doesn’t sound like the peak-most exciting combat for Celestial/s or CeleCele/UberUber (call it as you prefer), or pretty much any high-end content Boss in such a game mode.
Hopefully the pace will be more dynamic and enemies simply deadlier than just bullet sponges. (Unfortunately so far the Altar gif spoiler implies for a bullet sponges type of environment, at least to me)
1 Like
Thank you for this confirmation and not doing what so many developers do, and gating fun stuff behind undesired difficulty.
I don’t think this ancient heart of mine can take MOAR!
Jeez, you all are just machines. Now we know where they all went after the fall of Cairn.
2 Likes
This looks so awesome! Cant wait for 2025!
FEATURES!!!
Stalker 2 got delayed now this?!
Delays usualy never end up good,dying light 2,cyberpunk,starfield, 
&
…but those are AAAA games,an indie company is proly gonna spend the time well 