A decade on, beloved dark-fantasy ARPG Grim Dawn prepares for its "final hurrah," and it's an absolutely massive one

Grim Dawn is ten years old, and developer Crate Entertainment is celebrating by putting the final touches on its upcoming expansion, Fangs of Asterkarn. It might not have the audience of Blizzard’s behemoth, but the dark-fantasy ARPG remains one of the best games like Diablo to this day, and it’s about to get a serious upgrade. Built in the Titan Quest engine and inspired by Victorian-adjacent mythology, its world and buildcrafting absolutely stand the test of time, as evidenced by its ‘overwhelmingly positive’ 95% Steam review score. Now, the team behind it is preparing for its “final hurrah.”

“It’s wild to say that, ten years ago today, an upstart studio shipped a little game called Grim Dawn,” Crate says. “What’s mind-blowing to us is that the game went on to not only become a success beyond our wildest dreams at the time, but to become a staple in the APG genre.” The anniversary message thanks players for their support, which enabled the studio to grow from just eight people into a team of 29 that are currently working across four different projects.

“When we started, we never could have imagined that ten years later Grim Dawn would not only still be receiving major updates, but it would have another expansion on the way.” Fangs of Asterkarn takes us to the snowy mountains of Asterkarn, adds the challenging new Ascendant mode, and introduces the game’s tenth mastery, the Berskerer. Because you build your character by choosing two of these masteries, that dramatically escalates the number of possible combinations to 45. It even introduces shapeshifting, “a system [that] we once thought was untenable in this old engine.”

Crate’s engineers have still been fixing bugs, polishing spawns, updating loot tables, and adding new features such as loot filters in recent years. “With version 1.3.0 on the way, truly nothing feels off the table to make the game better for you.” This free update will land alongside Fangs of Asterkarn, and includes a full overhaul to the stash system and a modern, scalable UI. The old menus have long been one of Grim Dawn’s biggest signs of age, so the redesign is very welcome.

“Dare I say, more surprises are still in store for our Fangs of Asterkarn pre-patch,” Crate teases. It then reveals that the team expected sales to gradually decline following the launch of the 2019 expansion, Forgotten Gods, which was designed as “a fitting end” with impressive boss clashes and an infinite endgame mode that could push your builds to their limits. “But the Grim Dawn community surprised us again when in 2023 we found ourselves looking at growing player counts instead.”

Faced with this fresh resurgence in popularity, likely due to an ARPG boom inspired by the launch of Diablo 4, Crate Entertainment “knew we had to reassemble the team for one more loop around the sun.” We’re now in 2026, of course, and the developer admits that sentiment “may have been a bit of an understatement.” However, “the wait is nearly over.”

“Fangs of Asterkarn development is in its final stretch, and while we know for certain that this time it will be Grim Dawn’s final hurrah, calling it just another expansion is a gross understatement.” The numbers speak for themselves: the new region is more than 5.5 square kilometers, which clocks in at 76% of the size of base Grim Dawn, 170% of Ashes of Malmouth, and 223% as large as Forgotten Gods. That brings the total world to 18 square kilometers, and the new Ascendant mode lets you transform the whole thing into “your endgame playground.”

Along the way, you’ll run into over 60 bosses and minibosses, “most of them featuring unique models and animations,” eight new Nemesis monsters, and three climactic super bosses. The item pool features more than 370 new unique items and 116 Monster Infrequents (Grim Dawn’s name for special drops attached to specific enemy types), “with more custom models and less retextures than ever before.” There’s an alchemy system to customize potions, item awakening, and affix rerolling.

“When we wrap up Fangs of Asterkarn, Grim Dawn will not be going out with a bang, it will be a tremendous roar that will cement the game as a cornerstone of the ARPG genre. We are immensely proud of everything that’s in store for you and can’t wait to get it into your hands in just a few months,” Crate Entertainment concludes. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have an expansion to ship!”