Im just curious, what is it about Grim Dawn that makes you keep coming back?
For me its the static world, build possibilities, and no feeling of being rushed to play the game since its not a live service type of game.
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Smashing monsters feels really good in this game and you never run out of new things to try out.
And indeed no live service bullshit, I can take a break and come back and it’s still more or less the same (but a little better).
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Yeah i do agree with you that combat feels great in the game. And the sound fx are cool sounding on skills.
You can even find on youtube the way some of the afx were recorded at the beginning od the dev journey 
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Farming Alkamos. I still hope to find that second ring after way, way too many tries…
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- world atmosphere
- combat feeling
- soundtrack
- loot
- single player
- modding
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Combat (guns going pew pew with pasthru is particularly charming). Builds. New chars. I still love the feeling of a build “coming online” and just wrecking stuff. Now that I have lots of hours I don’t have to follow build guides I just build my own and I love that aspect as well.
The setting still charms me; a gloomy Victorian-esque era where crude firearms mix up with badass melee weapons and some crazy magic spells. Everyone is either depressed and still fighting; or else trying to screw you over. Or just given up.
The story is also good. I love the world building and mythology as well as all the little references and inside jokes.
1600hrs and just getting started. Recently did a whole save file wipe so starting over again was really fun. I think I have 2 level 200 builds and one more close. Love it.
Edit: killer soundtrack as well. Tho I will admit I mostly jam to my own tunes while playing.
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I keep coming back for a number of reasons:
- Primarily, It has depth, breadth, balance and polish and melee feels good
- It’s a static world, I know exactly how well new my build is performing along the way based on previous experience, so it’s fun to try out my own ideas and measure them (and I don’t need a market to finish my builds). I can play hardcore and it feels fair
- The campaign is enjoyable, lots of little secrets and target farmable areas with good lore and setting
- You can pause the game, and also I know it well enough I can put music or videos on and play casually if I want. This is a bigger winner than it seems
- Crate keep adding MOAR, so there’s reasons to come back. I’ve been here since before the kickstarter, it’s been a memorable journey
- Mods, for when I’m bored of the usual stuff
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Yes i agree 1000% on this. It sucks how tons of games are going the live service route and not including single player modes with the pause feature.
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I havent done this myself yet, but i guess i kind of did it when i went from playing on PC to my Xbox. Felt kind of good to be honest.
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My first contact with arpgs was Diablo 2, and afterwards I played Dungeon Siege 2 and Titan Quest. In my opinion, Grim Dawn is the absolute pinnacle of that kind of arpgs.
Visually, it looks great. Sure, it’s somewhat an older game now, so visual quality could be a bit better, but visual style is unparalleled in my view. The color palette and lighting are just outstanding.
It has great atmosphere. The environemnts are beautiful, detailed, interesting. The NPCs you encounter are memorable. The story is actually great. The quests are very engaging and the way the story is told through lore notes is just marvelous. It really builds this entire world that you are going through.
Gameplay is great. The skills are good and varied. Using the skills feel good and impactful. It’s not over the top like D3 and PoE. It’s not mind bogglingly fast and I can actually see what’s going on on the screen. I really hope it stays that way and I hope that a potential sequel will be in the same vein.
Character building is fantastic, this game has just the right amount of complexity. Itemization is great, the best that I’ve ever seen in an arpg. The items have great stats and great flavor. The way your char is built through skills, items, devotions is just great. It’s a very interesting puzzle game to bring all your important stats in order.
The music is phenomenal, on par with D2. How it follows the game, how it describes the enviroments. Mourndale and Malmouth are the best pieces of atmospheric music I’ve evehr heard. Malmouth in particular is one of the best designed areas in any game I’ve ever played, from the structure of the area, the visual filter, the music…just perfect.
Finally, the devs seem to be pretty cool.
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Build diversity, engaging combat, amazing atmosphere and music, continued dev support, great community, best “traditional” ARPG on the market hands down.
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Random urges to theorycrafting.
I’m not playing the game as frequent as before and only occasionally play now. Just yesterday when the urges ticks, I test my theory build, goes to 1v1 Korvaak, finish the SR80/81, and got the “A Done Deal” achievement
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What made a huge difference for me was the introduction of merits, which meant that the useless middle difficulty could be eliminated.
I played the game for a while during beta, and I played through normal once after it was released. But I really got into it a few years later, when I learned about merits. By now, I have five lvl100 chars, and number six is close.
I played Diablo 2 a couple of times over the years, but I’ve never managed to finish even a single character.
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Finally got the second ring, now uninstalling the game.
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Number of things bring me back to Grim Dawn:
- Theorycrafting - When I don’t have enough time to play the game, not even to progress by one waypoint, it is very satisfying to theorycraft something. Sometimes, it leads to something, sometimes it leads to close the browser tab…
- Breathing atmosphere - It is similar thing with Titan Quest, the atmosphere is superb for me, in Act 1, I can almost perceive and smell the cold, misty weather, like a day in November, in Act 2, it is like sunny October day… etc. The game creates for me, I would say, subliminal emotions by how the world is visually built
- Loot and rewards - Diablo 2 (and less, but still Titan Quest) were “pain in the rear end”, when you wanted to drop some items or higher runes or components. In Grim Dawn, the immense number of elite, unique and set items is awesome and the player is properly rewarded. Knowing that there will always be at least one blue item from Monster totem, having high chance of dropping at least one blue item from (mini)boss, and SR is rewarding as well
- Bounties - It might be suprising, but I prefer doing bounties over Crucible. Many times, the bounties are more of a “death delivering contract”, and Anasteria should use FedEx, instead of player to fullfil her wishes, but bounties help me to remember all the locations and its monster. To put them in my long-term memory.
- Difficulty balance in main campaign - Diablo 2 in many places and Titan Quest in some places were disbalanced in the terms of difficulty for me. Grim Dawn is more balanced and if your char is partially or fully messed up, the game will show it to you.
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