Grim Dawn - Fangs of Asterkarn

If you love Grim Dawn, there is no reason not to grab this amazing expansion. Adressing some of the downsides mentioned in other reviews : - Large and empty areas : already fixed by increasing the monster density since release. As for the environments themselves, they are very detailed and varied, with as many hidden secret nooks and crannies as the base game world. - New mastery, Berserker, underwhelming : absolutely a matter of personal perspective. The class has a number of unique mechanics, it is up to the player to properly build their character to make the most of these mechanics. - Difficulty spike : I see it as raising the difficulty ceiling of the game without raising the floor too much. Meaning, more challenge for maxed-out endgame players, while the very beginning is perhaps a little spicier for new players, but nothing overblown. Grim Dawn is already quite easy in the ARPG landscape. All in all, minor nitpicks that are easily overshadowed by all the excellent additions, and will most likely be smoothed out with future updates.

Bit sad, I've praised the game for years and played it often, mostly in HC mode. FoA was announced as a huge new map with an impressive amount of content but in the end it doesn't feel much bigger than the previous DLCs. I would even argue that without the quest break near the end requiring you to play a big chunk of the previous content, making sure you can't finish this first, Ashes of Malmouth almost feel longer to beat (my fault probably, always ends up getting turned around in that damn city). New mastery is alright, offer one or two interesting build paths but fall short of the potential offered by the class fantasy. Maybe future theorycrafters will prove me wrong. Overall would have been neutral slightly leaning toward recommend if you liked the previous content but what sealed the Not Recommended deal for me is that the devs thought it was great to just blanket buff the overall difficulty. Hoping this will get addressed in the future but as of now the balancing is out of whack, even pure tanky double masteries can get (seemingly) oneshot out of nowhere. And i'm not talking about getting sundered and standing in an obvious bad attack telegraph, but true situation where you're swarmed by mobs and a hero or four, special effect going everywhere from your buffs, your attacks and the same on their side, and bam you die. Outplay being just don't play melee, kite everything and only fight enemies one or two at a time? Yeah, of all the thing I play GD for, sweaty gamer grind wasn't the appeal. There are far better known and inexpensive alternatives, this feel like a classic case of following the advices of a top 1% theorycrafters and content creators stack without taking into consideration the average player experience. Still can be fixed later but in the meantime it's pretty hard to recommend this new DLC.

After giving it a lot of hours, I have very mixed feelings about this dlc but I'll give it a negative because all the time it took to make the dlc and the game is better without it overall. You either get one-shotted or monsters don't even make a scratch on you, a problem diablo 4 also has. The new class in my opinion is fun but very restrictive. I have a piercing/bleed build that explodes everything unless I do then my other character has a minion build that had a lot of gear with manipulation for a total of +9 but when I finally grabbed the skill I barely noticed the damage difference and it was a 100% to all damage buff supposedly. The good thing is you can play version 1.1.9.8 still on steam.

While not absolutely perfect it is still an excellent addition to this masterpiece of a game. Confident that the majority of complaints will be addressed in time as Crate have proven themselves to be long term supporters of the game and will continue to cook and fine tune.

UPDATE TO THE BELOW: the below issue was partially addressed by Crate in the patch released on 8 August 2026 (game version Grim Dawn v1.3.0.6). Please see below, beneath the dashed line, for the original issue. The quoted fix is as follows: "The Secrets of Ugdenbog and Cleansing Fire of a Forgotten God quests can now be completed retroactively by using Difficulty Merits or Multiplayer and no longer require fully progressing to those points in the respective expansions for veteran players. The quests auto-update upon looting the respective quest items." This removes the interruption when playing characters that have already completed all required earlier content on normal difficulty. Such characters can also purchase a Difficulty Merit from a vendor in the town hub of Act 6, which can be transferred to other characters via the in-game stash system. When used by a character, the Merit unlocks all rifts (waypoints) in the game for that character (among other things - it also opens up the next difficutly tier, for example). The character may then travel directly to the relevant zones and collect the required item, without needing to complete any quests in the corresponding Act. This is a significant improvement. However, the interruption still stands for first-time playthroughs. Consequently, I still can not recommoned Fangs of Asterkaarn for first-time playthroughs. Note that the frustration is not caused by simply requiring content in the game to be completed in a certain chronological order. Instead, the frustratrion is caused by the Fangs of Asterkaarn campaign initally indicating, via becoming accessible at the beginning of Act 4, that completion of earlier content is not required, but then presenting a progression-breaking requirement (of earlier content completion) late in the campaign. The above fix is an improvement to the relevant design decision, but does not fully address the issue that causes the frustration. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Original issue follows:* POTENTIAL BUYERS BEWARE: there is a very frustrating, progression-breaking moment in the campaign of Fangs of Asterkaarn. It is intended, and can not be skipped. The Fangs of Asterkaarn content, comprising Act 7 of the game, may be started at the beginning of Act 4. However, at a certain point in the Asterkaarn compaign, you will be sent back to complete content from earlier acts. If you do not complete the content from earlier acts then you will not be able to finish the Asterkaarn dlc. In particular: 1) You will be sent back to fetch an item from mobs in early Act 5. However, to open up the required area, you must complete Act 4. There is no way to skip this. Act 4 must be completed before you can get the required item. 2) You will also be sent back to retrieve an item from a zone in Act 6. However, this zone only becomes accessible after playing through nearly all of the main quests in Act 6. There is no way to skip this. Nearly all of the main quests in Act 6 must be completed before you can get the required item. There is no way to skip the requirements in Points (1) and (2) above. Your progression through the campaign of Fangs of Asterkaarn will be innterrupted, and you must complete the above steps to proceed. Each is time consuming, and presents a jarring halt to the campaign of Fangs of Asterkaarn. This is not a bug. It is fully intended by Crate in their design of the dlc. It is a very frustrating, surprising, and disappointing design decision. I can not recommend the Fangs of Asterkaarn dlc unless this design is changed. If you wish to buy and play all of the Fangs of Asterkaarn dlc, then make you sure you have finished all previous content on all characters you wish to play. Otherwise, be ready for a time consuming, jarring, and unavoidable diversion in each play through of this dlc.

Bloated boring DLC

给国内两条爱打小报告的牲畜

Whiny babies come out of the woodworks to thrash a great dlc, without being self aware of their own builds shortcomings. it's a tonne of fun , have thoroughly enjoyed everything it has added to the grimdawn experience.

Solid xpac. Be warned, this is more of gift from the developers for players who have reached the end of the previous endgame. The end game customization + loot farming is amazing added layer to the final end builds but not for the feint of heart. Xpac end game farming (final difficulty level) is not for fresh level 100 characters :) Much appreciated support from the developers and amazing xpac after all these years. Grim Dawn base game came out 2016 for those wondering and this xpac came out 2026.