Grim Dawn Review

Now that the title is effectively content complete (although still in Early Access), Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s writer Alec Meer has penned a review for Grim Dawn on the PC-focused gaming website. It’s certainly a positive piece, although Meer complains repeatedly about the game’s unwillingness to walk out of the shadow of Diablo II:

An over-reliance on tradition, both visually and mechanically, is the chief black mark against Grim Dawn as far as I’m concerned, but clearly it’s also its biggest selling point. ARPGs may be one of the most well-worn grooves in the PC gaming LP, but at the same time we don’t get too many straight ones these days, and especially not as slick and sprawling as this is. Sometimes you just want to click the button and enjoy the twin rewards of a monster bursting into a fountain of giblets and the dopamine-triggering metallic chink of a new toy dropping to the floor.

…

If you have an ARPG itch to scratch, I can’t recommend you look anywhere else right now. And while it’s still in Early Access for a few more weeks, it absolutely feels complete, and the only sign of any technical rough edges were a couple of crashes that I can’t 100% guarantee were its fault rather than my PC’s. Don’t fear buying it now just because it says .arly access on the tin’ you’d never guess it’s not quite finished.

It’ll keep you busy for a long damn time too, even if you only play it once though, of course, for many there’ll be later playthroughs in co-op or at unlockable higher difficulties. I think it’s the (admittedly presumed) desire to be the spiritual sequel to Diablo II which holds me back from heaping breathless praise on Grim Dawn, though. The need to be grim first and foremost forbids a clear personality from shining through, and the result is that I’m not sure how to finish a sentence which begins (Grim Dawn is that game where.)

Well, other than (.I had a better time than I did in Diablo III at launch), anyway.