GB Feature: Grim Dawn Preview

Iron Lore's Titan Quest was one of our favorite action RPGs of the past decade, so we've been keeping a very close watch on Crate Entertainment's Grim Dawn (which is developed by ex-Iron Lore designers on the Titan Quest engine) ever since it rose from the ashes of their first endeavor, Black Legion. So when the opportunity presented itself to check out an alpha version of the game, we jumped at the chance and have just finished cranking out our initial impressions:
Grim Dawn features a much more open character development system than most games of its ilk. Like Titan Quest before it, you start as a simple "nobody" who's able to specialize in one of five (three available in the alpha) character classes instead of picking your class on character creation. The ones I got to try out were the Soldier, Demolitionist, and Occultist, which fit into very obvious archetypes of melee fighter, ranged fighter and wizard. However, these character classes aren't necessarily fundamentally different - there's a lot of overlap in the skills available, and you can just as easily make a ranged Soldier as you can a melee Demolitionist, if you so choose. With the ability to multi-class as you gain in level, there are a lot of build options available to you compared to the more rigid character systems in similar games, though there's the inevitable downside that the classes don't feel as unique as they could otherwise.

There are three primary attributes in Grim Dawn - Cunning, Physique and Spirit. Cunning boosts your damage and accuracy, Physique lets you wear heavier equipment and absorb more damage, and Spirit gives you more energy to spend on skills and abilities. Though you will want to focus on one of these attributes depending on your character build, all of the attributes are important to all of the character classes, to the point where it's very possible to over-specialize. You'll only get one attribute point per level up, but spending it will raise your attribute score significantly; it's a bit unconventional, but there's nothing wrong with it either.