Grim Misadventure #99: Introducing the Crucible

Grim Misadventures returns with a bang. Last time we left you with a teaser, a little taste of what was on the horizon for Grim Dawn: The Crucible. Today, we will detail just what’s in store for you with Grim Dawn’s upcoming DLC content.

Back during the Kickstarter, one of the campaign’s final stretch goals was the unlocking of what we then called Survival Mode. It was described as follows: “In survival mode players will fight to stay alive against increasingly difficult waves of monsters.” At its core, the new Crucible mode embodies this statement, but it also delivers so much more as you tackle its 150 waves.

Push On, or Cash Out
In the Crucible, death marks the end (especially true for Hardcore players). Every 10 waves of enemies, you have to make a difficult choice: continue on for the next 10 encounters for a chance of greater reward, or cash out what you’ve earned and not risk your own demise.

Should you perish, you cannot continue and the treasure will be reduced substantially.

The Master of the Crucible eagerly awaits your arrival.

Earn Tributes
Tributes are the currency of the Crucible, earned only through bloody combat. How you spend your hard-earned Tributes is up to you:

  • Activate powerful Celestial Blessings to give you an edge in battle
  • Create devious Defenses to aid you in combat
  • Gamble them away for better rewards

Battle Across Multiple Arenas
The Crucible is a cruel place where even the mightiest heroes meet their match. But we couldn’t stop with just one deadly arena. Crucible mode will feature several battlegrounds, each with a different layout and defensive positions.

Crucible of the Dead

Crucible of the Sands

Overcome Cruel Mutators
Mutators are global effects applied to all monsters or players, each one a unique twist that strengthens monsters/players in one way, but weakens them in another. As you progress through the Crucible, additional Mutators will be applied, and every 10 waves they will be re-randomized.

Examples of Mutators:
Berserking: Monsters are berserking, Attacking faster but also becoming more Susceptible to Attacks.

Slowed: Player Movement Speed is greatly reduced, but Crowd Control doesn’t last as long.

Three Difficulty Modes
The Crucible will test your characters like nothing has before as you battle through the Aspirant, Challenger and Gladiator difficulties. Defeating 100 waves on a difficulty unlocks access to the next, where greater rewards (but also greater challenges) await.

The Crucible DLC is coming later this summer (pricing to be determined at launch). As a special thank you to those who have been with us at the beginning of Grim Dawn’s journey, everyone who purchased the game through our website prior to/during the Kickstarter, or through the Kickstarter campaign itself, will receive the DLC for FREE.

Beyond the horizon, you can also look forward to more free content updates for Grim Dawn, as well as the expansion, which is yet to be unveiled. Release of the Crucible will coincide with patch 1.0.0.5, which will include a balance/tuning pass.

Like knowing what is coming up next for Grim Dawn? Check back on 07/25/2016 for our next development update!

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HUZZAH! interest rekindled!!!:smiley:

(also first)

This looks incredible! Can’t wait!

Very hot, Cant wait like always :slight_smile:

that looks totally awesome !

just a question about the rewards :

does the loot drops in a “regular” way (orbs, random for each mob killed…) or is it just a reward (item or blueprint or component) every 10 waves ?

can’t wait to try it out anyway :smiley:

As a special thank you to those who have been with us at the beginning of Grim Dawn’s journey, everyone who purchased the game through our website prior to/during the Kickstarter, or through the Kickstarter campaign itself, will receive the DLC for FREE.

I deeply regret my Steam purchase :frowning:

so this is only for backers?

No, it’s purchasable DLC. It’s just free for those who backed the game during or prior to the kickstarter.

Not sure I follow.

If you purchased the game through steam, you were already long past the time-frame for receiving the crucible for free.

Great work, and thanks allowing early backers to download the DLC for free.

Nice! But from where we will access the Crucible? Will it be unlocked as early as the start? Will it be accessible by riftgates only?

I assume it will be made in a way you will unlock it after playing the game for a while, but it would be nice to know how we will access it already.

Seriously, who cares? This will be 10$ tops, and if you consider buying this, you must already have one or more maxed out char, so you invested at least 50-100 hours in the game. It’s not that much imo.

Also this is for max level chars only? What about difficulties and level scaling?

It is a game mode you select from the main menu. Available from level 1, if you’re crazy enough to try.

I have both softcore and hardcore level 85 characters. I should definitely try this on hardcore first, right?

I see… I thought you would access it on the main campaign. That’s cool, thanks!

it’s a special mode i bieleve, could well be accessible just from the start screen (ofc a lvl 6 charcater would be destroyed right from the start)

edit : burnt, forgot to reload the page. sorry :o

Looks really good. Great work guys.

That survival mode seems awsome especially with multiple area’s even better than I espected. Will it future any lore with it, like some sort of challenge for hero’s from every world?

Glittering prizes and Death at the corner . woot . Sounds great ! Thanks Crate !!