Grim Dawn Development Updates, Screenshots

It appears that Crate Entertainment has recruited a pair former 38 Studios designers, and the two – Jalex and Zantai – have been busy posting introductions and a couple of development updates for Grim Dawn. Jalex introduces himself here and then proceeds to give us an environment preview here, while Zantai has kicked off an image-laden “Grim Misadventures” series here, here, and here. That leaves us with quite a bit of reading and screenshots to pore through, so I’ve mirrored the screens in our image gallery and have quoted some of the more interesting text below:

My name is Jesse (in unison, (Hi Jesse)) AKA (Jalex) – the newest member of the Grim Dawn team! I’ve joined up as a designer and my main responsibilities will be creating beautiful (but twisted) playspaces, and filling them up with enemies you can hack, slash, and shoot your way through. In addition I’ll be writing and implementing fun quests that thematically fit the world.

Like Zantai, I’m a refugee of 38 Studios. When it closed – scratch that – imploded violently, my love of Titan Quest (and the modding tools!) drove me to contact Arthur about working on Grim Dawn, probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.

At 38, I was a Content Designer on an unreleased MMO codenamed Copernicus. My job was creating playspaces, filling them up with enemies, and creating quests that thematically fit the world. If that sounds similar to what I wrote above that’s a good thing! I plan on taking everything I learned at 38 and put it to good use here. Obviously MMO’s and ARPG’s are a bit different beasts, but they share a lot of common design principles when it comes to providing you, the player, the best experience possible.

…

Greetings people of the internet, especially you fantastic supporters of Grim Dawn. My name is Kamil (Zantai) Marczewski, and I have joined Arthur Bruno on his noble quest of bringing you one of the most memorable ARPG experiences to date. Specifically, my job will be to game the design, or possibly breathe life and mystery into the dark world of Cairn.or was it to consume energy drinks at an unhealthy pace to achieve a state of nirvana?

For the vast majority of you who do not know me, I started my game design career at the ripe age of twelve, building Starcraft mods. That passion has only grown over the years as I moved on to more complex and ambitious projects. My last modding work involved the once popular Starcraft II mod (Zerg Hunter RPG)(www.zhrpg.net). Since then, I had moved on to professional design work at 38 Studios where I was responsible for creating game content, including some very complicated scripted event work. As you may have heard, 38 Studios had recently closed amidst a rather unpleasant financial disaster that left many very talented people without work in a matter of weeks.

But the horrors of losing a passionate place to work aside, all is not bad, as I had a chance to meet with an insane and probably dangerous designer named Arthur Bruno through shared contacts. After exchanging war stories, twisted dreams, and dirty secrets, Arthur decided to offer me a place in his cult.

…

I’m showing off four screens of a farm/homestead area I’ve been working on, with a bit of a Grim Dawn twist, going for a Sleepy Hollow vibe at night, and in the daytime, the colors show, but there is still a light haze and tension in the air…

I generally start by “Whiteboxing” an area first, setting up the playspaces, pathes, major obstacles like walls and buildings and such. It doesn’t look pretty but lets me change things quickly before polishing it up. Once I’m satisfied I do a detail pass and the result is what you see here. Keep in mind that these are shots in Editor, so in game it will look a bit more crisp, and camera angles may be off from what you can see in the game – but hopefully you get the idea.