I am writing this review after beating the main campaign and both story dlcs on all difficulties, doing the main quests and most of the side quests. It took me 159hrs and 14min; I played a decent amount offline, hence the time discrepancy. This game has a lot of content and build diversity. In short, it is one of my favourite ARPGs of all time, if not my favourite. 10/10.

The game is set in a grim-dark post-apocalyptic world filled with magical enemies: beasts, spirits, demons, eldritch monstrosities and more. The story is typical of this and is adequate, with plenty of interesting lore interspersed throughout the game. The gameplay is where this game really shines.

The buildcrafting functions similarly to that of Titan Quest: You take two classes and mix them together. There are some interesting combinations--my main character's being the Occultist and Necromancer classes (Cabalist) for minion spam--but on top of this, you also get passive abilities by restoring shrines. These passives are separate from your class, but you can attach many of them to abilities, including minion abilities, allowing them to have a chance to activate with said abilities. This allows for a very squishy necromancer-occultist to become a facetanking nightmare, if combined with the right gear. And the gear is extremely variewd. There are mythic and legendary items (second highest and highest rarity items, respectively), which provide the usual slew of bonuses but also skills (either activating automatically with certain conditions or when you choose, depending on the item). On top of this, you can enchant your gear with a plethora of attachments, which can also grant you more skills.

So, you have classes, blessings for restoring shrines, gear, and gear enchantments. With the random drops (and with certain monsters dropping specific gear, too), you can really customise your play style as you wish. And, certain green items (the rarity below mythic) with rolls much more randomised than mythic and legendary items can have such good stats that they are better than any legendary items and can even define builds.

Then there is the combat. If your build has flaws, the combat will suck once you hit Elite difficulty (NG+), and you will again get floored by Ultimate difficulty (NG++). As a tip, focus on your resistances first once you prepare to enter Elite difficulty, and again before entering Ultimate difficulty. If your build is good, you can absolutely stomp through hordes, and it is so satisfying. Learning what works and what doesn't, how to adjust your build and how to use your kit in a way that uniquely suits you, is truly addictive. When I bought this game years ago, I played 33hrs in three days, which was not a good idea at the time but was ridiculously fun.

The graphics are nothing special, being somewhat outdated, but they are certainly sufficient given that you should probably zoom out anyway for better battlefield awareness. This game is also fairly well optimised and can run on older PCs, including my old, trash laptop that just had its basic GPU.

So, if you are looking for a solid ARPG with interesting lore, an intriguing and dark atmosphere, amazing and top-tier build-crafting and build variety, and solid combat (albeit with a learning curve at higher difficulties), pick up Grim Dawn. It goes on sale fairly often for quite low prices, but it is absolutely worth full price.

As an aside, once you beat the main campaign on Ultimate difficulty, you can go to the Forgotten God's DLC location and buy a consumable that can transfer to another character. The consumable levels up a new character and puts them into ultimate difficulty immediately. You can also use the Crucible DLC for a new character to get an easy boost to early levels. So, both story DLCs and the Crucible are worth it.

I am writing this review after beating the main campaign and both story dlcs on all difficulties, doing the main quests and most of the side quests. It took me 159hrs and 14min; I played a decent amount offline, hence the time discrepancy. This game has a lot of content and build diversity. In short, it is one of my favourite ARPGs of all time, if not my favourite. 10/10. The game is set in a grim-dark post-apocalyptic world filled with magical enemies: beasts, spirits, demons, eldritch monstrosities and more. The story is typical of this and is adequate, with plenty of interesting lore interspersed throughout the game. The gameplay is where this game really shines. The buildcrafting functions similarly to that of Titan Quest: You take two classes and mix them together. There are some interesting combinations--my main character's being the Occultist and Necromancer classes (Cabalist) for minion spam--but on top of this, you also get passive abilities by restoring shrines. These passives are separate from your class, but you can attach many of them to abilities, including minion abilities, allowing them to have a chance to activate with said abilities. This allows for a very squishy necromancer-occultist to become a facetanking nightmare, if combined with the right gear. And the gear is extremely variewd. There are mythic and legendary items (second highest and highest rarity items, respectively), which provide the usual slew of bonuses but also skills (either activating automatically with certain conditions or when you choose, depending on the item). On top of this, you can enchant your gear with a plethora of attachments, which can also grant you more skills. So, you have classes, blessings for restoring shrines, gear, and gear enchantments. With the random drops (and with certain monsters dropping specific gear, too), you can really customise your play style as you wish. And, certain green items (the rarity below mythic) with rolls much more randomised than mythic and legendary items can have such good stats that they are better than any legendary items and can even define builds. Then there is the combat. If your build has flaws, the combat will suck once you hit Elite difficulty (NG+), and you will again get floored by Ultimate difficulty (NG++). As a tip, focus on your resistances first once you prepare to enter Elite difficulty, and again before entering Ultimate difficulty. If your build is good, you can absolutely stomp through hordes, and it is so satisfying. Learning what works and what doesn't, how to adjust your build and how to use your kit in a way that uniquely suits you, is truly addictive. When I bought this game years ago, I played 33hrs in three days, which was not a good idea at the time but was ridiculously fun. The graphics are nothing special, being somewhat outdated, but they are certainly sufficient given that you should probably zoom out anyway for better battlefield awareness. This game is also fairly well optimised and can run on older PCs, including my old, trash laptop that just had its basic GPU. So, if you are looking for a solid ARPG with interesting lore, an intriguing and dark atmosphere, amazing and top-tier build-crafting and build variety, and solid combat (albeit with a learning curve at higher difficulties), pick up Grim Dawn. It goes on sale fairly often for quite low prices, but it is absolutely worth full price. As an aside, once you beat the main campaign on Ultimate difficulty, you can go to the Forgotten God's DLC location and buy a consumable that can transfer to another character. The consumable levels up a new character and puts them into ultimate difficulty immediately. You can also use the Crucible DLC for a new character to get an easy boost to early levels. So, both story DLCs and the Crucible are worth it.