Grim Dawn has some pretty big shoes to fill. It’s an action RPG game made in the style of the classics of the genre, and by the designers of “Titan Quest,” which happens to be one of those classics. Adding on to that, it goes for the same sort of gothic horror tone as the original “Diablo” without the more fantastic elements of the later games of that series. I was a bit hesitant since it was partially crowd-funded, but clearly these are developers who know what they’re doing, right?
“Grim Dawn” doesn’t spend a whole lot of effort making sure that the player understands what is going on with the story. After a brief introduction, most of the explanation as to what is going on in the world around you are hidden away in side quests. This is all perfectly in keeping with the game’s status as a love-letter to the original “Diablo,” which followed a similar structure, but with randomly chosen side-quests. The basic gist of the story of “Grim Dawn” is that, during the Victorian era, some sort of vague, apocalyptic event happened and now the dead are rising from their graves, and weird alien creatures and demons are wandering the land. The player controls someone who has recently been purged of a possession and has been tasked with trying to help a community of survivors build a shelter.
“Grim Dawn” looks fantastic. It uses its Victorian setting to give it an advantage over many other dark fantasy games, visually. The setting allows the game to use a much wider array of visual elements, since you have the technology and fashion of the Victorian era available, but also a lot of older, more battered medieval things being pressed into service in this time of desperation. The game uses a really nice, dark color palette, but has enough vibrantly colored things to stop it from getting too dreary.
The game’s sound design does a good job of adding to the atmosphere. The music is sparse and lonesome. The sound effects are pretty standard for an action RPG, plenty of sword slashes and armor clinks, all that sort of thing. The voice acting is good, but not great. None of this is particularly revolutionary, but that’s okay. “Grim Dawn” isn’t the sort of game that leans hard on its audio. It’s more there for function than anything else, and it does that and then some.
“Grim Dawn” uses a tried and true formula for its gameplay. It mostly involves a lot of clicking. You click on places to walk there. You click on enemies to attack them. You click on items to pick them up. You click on people to talk to them. Sometimes, you right click to cast a spell or something. There’s not a whole lot of timing involved, either. The real challenge of the game is in figuring out which equipment to use and what skills to invest points in to suit your style of play. This is pretty much how all of the sort of classic computer action RPGs played, so it makes sense that “Grim Dawn” plays that way too. However, “Grim Dawn” also has some really nice upgrades to that old system. Some small items, such as money and healing potions, are automatically picked up when the player gets close enough. Also, the player picks a class early on, like in most action RPGs, but then before too much longer players also gain access to a second class, so there’s an added element of strategy in that, as well as opening up a lot more different styles of play.
So it turns out that, yes, the makers of “Grim Dawn” knew exactly what they were doing. If you’re hungry for a good action RPG, or something with that same bleak, gothic horror tone as the original “Diablo” look no further. “Grim Dawn” is the game for you.
