Grim Dawn's one of my favourite ARPGs—and it just had a massive update, despite releasing in 2016. While I'm really excited for its upcoming expansion, Fangs of Asterkarn, I figured Crate Entertainment would save its big overhauls for that. Boy oh boy was I wrong.
You can see the full patch notes here on the game's steam forums, and they're huge. The changes therein are a genuine attempt to modernise Grim Dawn—it'll never be as flashy as something like Diablo 4, sure, and that's part of its charm. Doesn't mean the more sensible upgrades from modern ARPGs can't be worked in, does it?
There are two massive changes to the core experience. First off you have dedicated health and spirit (mana) potion skills now—no more stacking vials in your inventory. That's one modern design choice I'm glad has made its way into our current ARPGs—if a game like Grim Dawn doesn't make health potions cheap, then it becomes frustrating to play. But if they're cheap, what's the point of needing to buy them?
Now you just have two dedicated buttons which are infinite supplies of both, though the health potion has a 12 second recharge and the spirit potion has a 25 second recharge. Both scale off percentages of your current health or spirit, so they're not something you have to upgrade.
Secondly, there's just a straight-up Diablo 4 style evade button now. You can hit the space bar (or a keybind of your choice) to dash in the direction you're facing. It even has invincibility frames. There are movement abilities in the game, sure, but this is a huge upgrade. I jumped in to test it, and I mean—look at this thing. That's a straight-up modern day ARPG dodge in a game from 2016.
Sure, it might make the game feel a little less 'classic', but in a
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