Grim Dawn - Progress Since Act II

Crate Entertainment talks about the development of Grim Dawn in the latest post-funding update, and reminds everyone they have released build 19.

Progress Since Act II

I normally try to reserve sending updates through KS for big announcements, so as to spare your email too much spam but it has been long enough that I felt a proper KS update was in order.

By the way, for anyone who would like to receive notification of all our updates, you can do so by following us on Facebook, Twitter or just by periodically checking the feed on our homepage. Of course, we also encourage everyone to participate on our forum and voice your feedback.

Build 19 has gone live today and unleashed two-handed melee weapons along with the "roguelike" dungeon, Steps of Torment. It also includes a new experimental constitution mechanic that is intended to help out-of-combat regen not seem infinite and more of a resource you need to use somewhat strategically. Previously we released dual wielding for pistols, so that checks a couple of stretch goals off the list!

Build 19 also includes a lot of behind the scenes coding work to make our new quest system work with multiplayer, in advance of our anticipated multiplayer release this summer (possibly by the end of July). These changes required a lot of testing and fixing that prevented us from releasing B19 sooner but we've already gotten a lot of work done on B20 content in the meantime.

In Build 18 we introduced crafting with over 150 item recipes and a new quest to rescue one of two rival blacksmiths. We also added a veteran mode starting difficulty for players who wanted a little more challenge. The character info sheet received a major overhaul to provide much more detailed information about your characters. For example, OA and DA roll-overs now show your chance to hit, miss, crit and be crit by your last target / attacker. In Build 18 we also greatly randomized the way enemies were spawned, resulting in more diversity in the mix and size of encounters. Most enemies also now switch from run to walk once they've closed within a certain distance of the player and then back to run if the player gets out of range, promoting a more controlled feeling to combat and allowing for more tactical movement on the player's part when dealing with big groups of hard-hitting enemies.

Since the release of Act II, we've also done a bit of work to improve the look of the environments and lighting. We've adjusted textures, added assets and tweaked environmental effects to make areas more distinctive.

There have been tons of smaller improvements, balancing changes and fixes that can be found in our change logs.

Act III is shaping up nicely with about 80% of the environmental art finished, 60% of the terrain currently built and the enclave of Homestead finished but not yet populated. About 65% of the enemies and one of the end-game bosses are finished. Now that dual wield pistols and 2h melee is released, our animator will be able to focus more of his time on enemy animation. We're hoping to release Act III this fall. Some progress has also been made on Arcanist and, depending on how playtesting goes, that might be ready in August.

We also have a secret new layer of character development in the works that will add a lot of depth and diversity to class builds but it is a little premature to talk about yet. We look forward to sharing more information on that in the coming months!