Grim Dawn - 6/10
I’m not a big modern ARPG guy. The core gameplay loop is usually fine, but I can’t ever get into the whole grinding for gear score to do endgame content. With that said, I actually had a really good time with Grim Dawn.
Grim Dawn is an ARPG by Crate Entertainment, a company made up of former Iron Lore Entertainment developers, whose only prior game was Titan Quest, another ARPG released in 2006 that was relatively well received. It’s not surprise, then, that Grim Dawn has been both a critical and financial success, having sold 1 million units in it’s first 15 months out of early access.
But none of that matters on this blog, only my opinion does (/s, but there aren’t comments or anything so it’s true). And what’s my opinion? That the first two Fast and Furious movies are incredible and you should watch, or rewatch them. And that Grim Dawn is pretty fun.
Grim Dawn doesn’t bring much new to the table in terms of core gameplay loop, it’s mostly just holding down the auto-attack while waiting for your cooldowns, but the world and storytelling was interesting and engaging enough for me not to be too bothered by the brainless combat (sorry ARPG fans). One gripe I had was the kind of poor controller support, but not the fact that the controller support itself wasn’t great (it wasn’t), my main issue was with the community.
And look, I know I get caught up on stuff like this way more often than I should, but as a new player to a lot of these series and genres I don’t want to feel talked down to or like I’m somehow not really playing your game because I choose to play on controller. But wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly how I felt when I was trying to figure out basic functions. I read numerous comments saying I “should be grateful there’s controller support at all” and “this game was meant to be played with mouse and keyboard” and the one that irked me the most was, “playing with a controller makes the game easier, it’s not how it was intended to be experienced” and look, I’m a Souls enjoyer, I grew up in CoD and Halo lobbies, I’m no stranger to toxicity in a gaming community, but fuck off. There is no right or wrong way to play a game (I’m glossing over stuff like cheating online or for high scores). If I want to play with a controller, why does it matter to you? I’m perfectly capable of getting carpel tunnel from my day job, I don’t need any help from this game. And, I dunno, reading comments like that while I was trying to figure out if there were settings I could change to make the camera easier to use really left a bad taste in my mouth.
I was also streaming this game, and while I generally had a positive experience with this game’s audience, there was one sentiment expressed by quite a few different people that really bothered me. “Oh, the game doesn’t start to get good until your 3rd or 4th playthrough”, like, excuse me? Also, sorry, I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant, but that’s just the vibe, so we’re riding it.
Listen, I’m no game designer, I’m the guy watching the football game yelling about decisions the coaches are making. But if a game isn’t “good” until the 3rd or 4th playthrough, why the fuck would I playit that long to begin with? Like “Oh yeah, you have to sink 70 hours into it before you have any fun”, why would I bother??? (and I didn’t, for the record, I didn’t end up finishing all the DLC, letalone starting a second playthrough).
I don’t have any issue with games having new game plus, but your new game shouldn’t be hindered, or balanced around that experience, it should be it’s own thing that can stand on it’s own with new game plus being balanced separately. Games like Ratchet and Clank (after the first one) do a great job of this by introducing harder enemies, weapon evolutions, and (depending on the game) currency you only spend in NG+. It gives the player a new challenge and a reason to play it multiple times. Conversely, I was told numerous times that I couldn’t have a complete build until I played through the campaign or DLC multiple times and that my 3rd and 4th playthroughs would be a lot more fun because I’d have already maxed out factions and that’s just not good game design.
And beyond the community aspect of it, I think this is where I ultimately bounced off the game. It has too many grindy MMO, seasonal ARPG content to be fun for me. And no shade if that’s your thing, WoW has 7 million subscribers for a reason, but it’s just not something I enjoy. Gameplay, especially in a primarily singleplayer or co-op game, should evolve as the player plays, not rely on minimal gains from doing the same quest over and over again in the same area. The reason that works in MMO’s and games like Path of Exile and Diablo 3/4 are because they’re live service games with expansions, seasons, and most importantly, other players! Incorporating the grind in a singleplayer game is all style and no substance, like a meal with good ingredients but no seasoning, it just falls flat.
I don’t want to make it seem like I didn’t enjoy Grim Dawn, because what I played was fun, but it definitely overstayed it’s welcome, and to experience all the game had to offer would have been way too much of a commitment. If taken at face value, just playing through the main campaign was a fun 30 or so hour experience with a decent amount of challenge, interesting worldbuilding, and fun enough combat, but as I started to play the DLC it became obvious I was expected to grind for faction rank to get better gear to make number go up, otherwise the DLC was unbalanced. That’s not for me, I’m not going to grind to max level on one character just so I can start another playthrough with another class so I can get even better gear to fight boss 842 with similar mechanics to the previous 841.
Normally I like to talk about the story of a game, it’s mechanics, how it progressed, etc. but I must have had some suppressed feelings about this game, because man do I seem bitter. Sorry for the rant.
- Zack
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