Interview with WCCFTech

[Zantai]

We recently answered some questions for WCCFTech

Talking Grim Dawn with Crate Entertainment: Forgotten Gods, Xbox One Port and...

Stop on by for some insight into the Forgotten Gods and the upcoming XBox port’s release.

Also, in case you missed it, PCGamer has declared Grim Dawn one of the best RPGs to play on PC:

The best RPGs on PC

[sircaw]

Very very disappointed with Sony, i really wanted this on ps4, hope and pray one day they sort this out.

[innoruuk]

Sony :furious: the best arpg of all time, what are you waiting for, Sony:confused:

[Home]

So what I read out if this is that if enough people buy the new expansion, we can see a third one coming? I am also very happy you said that Grim Dawn 2 would be very much possible, I feared you would probably want to focus on another game or another genre after Grim Dawn.

I am not happy to hear that adding in game searches or categories to items like for crafting or filtering are difficult to do… It is one of the major annoyances of the game, the handling of your items and the crafting.

[Evil_Baka]

So what I read out if this is that if enough people buy the new expansion, we can see a third one coming?

I don’t think they (or Zantai rather) has said that another expansion is guaranteed if Forgotten Gods exceeds expectations but that they will consider it. Slight difference.

I am also very happy you said that Grim Dawn 2 would be very much possible, I feared you would probably want to focus on another game or another genre after Grim Dawn.

“Possible” does not necessarily mean soon. We know they have a city builder project in the works that medierra is working on that I believe Zantai has said is in a playable state but is currently not feature complete.

Medierra also has said that they want to step away from ARPGs for some time due to burnout from developing them for so long and that he’d be happier with more funds to throw at a Grim Dawn sequel first.

My guess right now? I don’t think we’ll see a Grim Dawn 2 for a few years yet.

[medea_fleecestealer]

So what I read out if this is that if enough people buy the new expansion, we can see a third one coming? I am also very happy you said that Grim Dawn 2 would be very much possible, I feared you would probably want to focus on another game or another genre after Grim Dawn.

I am not happy to hear that adding in game searches or categories to items like for crafting or filtering are difficult to do… It is one of the major annoyances of the game, the handling of your items and the crafting.

From Friday’s stream:

“AdiosOcelote : Didn’t you say the same after releasing AoM?
I mean I suppose we did, but ultimately it is a financially driven decision. I guess if Forgotten Gods blows us away in terms of how many copies it sells then maybe a third expansion would be discussed. But at this time isn’t not like - we’re definitely doing a third expansion.”

And these from the 25th May stream:

"Any plans for new expansions post Forgotten Gods?
Fogotten Gods isn’t even out yet and you’re asking me for expansions after that. That will depend entirely on how Forgotten Gods does, but realistically the team would probably like to try some new things soon. We can’t be working on Grim Dawn forever. And financially speaking each expansion will sell less than the last. So keeping that in mind, while we expect Forgotten Gods to pay for itself and make us a profit as a company I’m not sure it’ll sell as well as Ashes of Malmouth did. That’s just the nature of people moving on to other games.

When we move on from Grim Dawn, will there be any possibility of picking Grim Dawn back up in the future - perhaps 5 or so years later?
I would certainly say that’s entirely possible. We’re not ruling out potentially doing a Grim Dawn 2 some day or some other games in the Grim Dawn universe. That’s all up to what the future holds. It’s too early to say."

And Medierra’s reasoning from way back in November 2016:

Mountain valley town

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.

We’re still waiting for that last sentence to be realised - nearly 2 years down the line now (cough, cough, hint, hint - begging here Big M).

[Darkstalix]

how beautifully this game has grown all these years.
Keep it up guys i adore the game

[Sneaky_parrot]

Grim Dawn for the win!!!:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:cool: