Grim Dawn Wiki

Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn is an action role-playing dungeon crawler developed and published by Crate Entertainment, released for Windows on February 25, 2016 and built on the Iron Lore engine that powered Titan Quest. Set in the shattered world of Cairn, it follows a handful of human survivors after an Aetherial invasion and a Chthonian incursion have destroyed civilization, leaving iron more valuable than gold and trust harder to earn than either. Characters are built from two of ten masteries chosen freely, so every combination produces a distinct class name and a distinct set of skills, and progression runs through a devotion constellation system, faction reputation, and a loot ladder of components, augments, relics and set items. Three expansions, Ashes of Malmouth, Forgotten Gods and the final chapter Fangs of Asterkarn, extended the campaign east, then south, then west into the frozen Asterkarn territories, and the game remains a benchmark for build variety in the genre.

• Dual Mastery Builds — A character picks any two of the ten masteries and the pairing defines the class, so Soldier plus Necromancer is a Death Knight and Arcanist plus Nightblade is a Spellbreaker. Skill points are spent inside each mastery tree and the combination is the core of the game's build variety rather than a locked class choice made at character creation.
• Devotion Constellations — Shrines scattered across Cairn grant devotion points that are spent in a star map of constellations tied to damage types, resistances and celestial powers. Constellations unlock in sequence, so a build's identity includes which celestial powers it can attach to its skills.
• Itemization Ladder — Gear runs through common, magic, rare, epic and legendary tiers with random affixes, and is extended by components that slot into gear, faction augments, relics with granted skills, set items and Monster Infrequents that drop from specific enemies with fixed modifiers.
• Faction Reputation — Fighting for or against the major factions earns or costs reputation, and reputation gates quartermaster stock, augments, bounties and Nemesis spawns. The Kymon's Chosen versus Order of Death's Vigil choice is the clearest example, since siding with one closes the other for that character.
• Difficulty Tiers and Hardcore Mode — The campaign runs on Normal, Elite and Ultimate, with the optional Veteran difficulty layered on Normal and the expansion's Ascendant mode raising the challenge of the whole world for endgame characters. Hardcore remains a one-death mode, which is where most of the game's build discipline comes from.
• Endgame Modes — Beyond the campaign, the Crucible is a wave-survival arena bought as its own DLC and the Forgotten Gods expansion added the Shattered Realm, an endlessly scaling run of randomized chunks with its own reward structure and modifiers.
• Fangs of Asterkarn (2026) — The final expansion sends the campaign west to Asterkarn to negotiate with the Kurn tribes, adds the tenth mastery in the Berserker with werewolf and wereraven wereforms, introduces the Ascendant game mode, and ships 380 new unique items, new item sets and 54 new bosses including eight new Nemesis encounters.
• Cairn and the Age of Chthon — The story is set after an Aetherial invasion broke the world and a Chthonian cult opened the way for its own gods, leaving scattered settlements, a militarized Black Legion and several competing cults. The campaign follows the survivors from Devil's Crossing through Homestead, Fort Ikon, the Necropolis and Malmouth as both invasions escalate.