Action RPGs are like buses. There aren't any around for ages, then suddenly three come along at once. Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 are just rounding the corner up ahead, but behind both of them there's a distant speck on the horizon. That's Grim Dawn, coming in fast. It's being built by a small independent team made up of former Titan Quest developers, and it's looking really rather promising. After more than two years spent working on the game, Crate have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the final leg of development. $69,128 have been raised already.
Titan Quest was sunny, and massive. Grim Dawn will be darker, but more expansive. There will be a main quest, but you're free to wander off in an entirely different direction to explore the open world, find new monsters and punch them to level up. As you loot the corpses of your foes, you'll be gathering the resources needed to repair smashed bridges and open up routes into Grim Dawn's scariest zones.
Crate promise that combat will be faster and crunchier than Titan Quest, with some destructible scenery. The Kickstarter page mentions breakable walls and fragile house interiors that can be smashed to bits to uncover secret areas. Like Titan Quest, each character can combine two of the five available classes into one highly specialised build. Each class will have multiple skill trees to choose from and, providing you can pony up a bit of looted gold, it'll be easy to respec and create experimental builds.
There will be some randomisation, too. The Kickstarter page mentions "set-piece spawners" that can "turn a patch of wilderness into different types of enemy camps, a traveling merchant caravan, etc." The loot system is designed to deliver less useless detritus and more "uber randomized gear." As you complete quests and move through the story, your actions will improve the prospects of your hometown. That'll be reflected in visual upgrades on the starting town's streets as you progress.
It'll have LAN support, too, and mod support, and it'll be DRM free. Check out the Grim Dawn Kickstarter page for more details, or head over to the Grim Dawn site .
