Combine any of five distinct skill classes each with multiple skill trees in which to specialize. Advance your class mastery up to 75 levels to unlock dozens of powerful skills and synergistic modifiers. New classes will be periodically released through downloadable content.

Destructible environments give evidence of your massive battles while collapsing stonework and flying shards of furniture can be used tactically to cause further injury to your foes.

Dynamic Weather brings the world to life with region-specific climates and a variety of weather effects. A sunny day can cloud over with mild rainshowers that builds into a booming thunderstorm. Variable wind gusts blow grass and affect objects like windmills and window shutters.

Gameplay systems designed to expand for 200 levels of character progression, equipment, and enemies to fight makes for ridiculous amounts of replay value.

Connect with old friends or make new allies in glorious multiplayer. Specially balanced multiplayer encounters will put your teamwork to the ultimate challenge.

Collect blueprints that allow you to combine salvaged components into unique crafted items and then, later, use those basic crafted items with higher-tiered recipes to complete items of unprecedented badassness.

Camera rotation enhances the three-dimensionality of the world and gameplay while levels are still designed so that players are not forced to rotate the camera.

Refined loot system drops less junk items and ensures more consistent rewards from hero and boss monsters.

Satisfying enemy damage and death effects with an option to enable blood and gore.

New quest and conversation system will allow players to choose quest paths and rewards, interact with NPCs in more interesting ways, and an intuitive quest creation wizard will make life a lot easier for modders.

An NPC faction system lets the player improve their relations with different NPC groups to earn rewards as their favor increases such as merchant discounts, new items, and additional quest lines. However, aiding one faction could turn a rival faction into your enemy. Choose which side you will support!

The ability to spend money to reclaim skill and attribute points alleviates the fear and frustration of having to make early, uninformed decisions that could permanently nerf a character.

More features are in the works and will be announced as Grim Dawn nears release.

What is Grim Dawn?

Grim Dawn is an action-RPG for the PC currently being developed by veterans of Iron Lore Entertainment, the creators of Titan Quest. The game is set in a thematically-dark fictional world loosely inspired by the Victorian Era on earth. Grim Dawn is being developed with the same tools and technology used to create Titan Quest. As a spiritual successor to Titan Quest, Grim Dawn will carry forward the best gameplay of this genre while bringing a few focused innovations and improvements of our own to the table.

Will Grim Dawn be based in history / mythology?

No, Grim Dawn will be set in a unique fictional world that is loosely inspired by the Victorian Era but is not meant to actually take place on Earth, mythological or otherwise. A lot of effort has gone into the development of a deep story-world with a rich history, unique characters and intriguing subplots. The setting will be “thematically” darker in terms of mood and environment but, don't worry, unlike many games set in post-apocalyptic style worlds, Grim Dawn won't be a burnt out, gray wasteland.

Where can I buy Grim Dawn and how much will it cost?

We plan to release Grim Dawn on Steam and through other digital distribution sites for about $20. In addition to this, you can also buy the game now from our website and download it directly from us when it releases. By purchasing directly from us now, your money will help fund our development and make Grim Dawn a better game. We may also release a box-copy to be sold in stores at some point but we have not yet worked out all the details.

What is this talk of downloadable content?

When many people hear the term downloadable content they are filled with fear and rage. They imagine having to charge $0.50 to their credit cards everytime they buy a new item. This is not what we imagine. This is a downloadable game, so it makes sense that when we release expansion packs, they will also be downloadable. These expansions will be similar to a normal boxed game-expansion in that they will generally contain new story elements, classes, enemies, items, and new regions of the world to explore.

Will Grim Dawn have multiplayer?

Absolutely! You will be able to group up with family and friends to take on the world of Grim Dawn just as you could in Titan Quest. In addition, we intend to release high-end multiplayer challenges especially designed and balanced for group play.

How will character classes work?

We plan to release with 5 skill classes, each containing several skill trees. Additional skill classes will be introduced through downloadable add-ons. Players will be able to combine any two skill classes to explore powerful synergies that exist between the skill trees of different classes and experience the varying gameplay styles of each class build. It will be impossible to max out all the skills from two classes, so there will be plenty of experimentation to find the best way to allocate your points. Don't worry though, if you aren't satisfied with your build, you will be able to spend money to reclaim spent skill points.

Will Grim Dawn have tons of sweet loot?

Does a bear shit in the woods?! We have made many improvements to our item drop and randomization system with far more custom-crafted magical, rare, and even unique bonuses. We have also made several improvements to the loot dropping system to ensure more consistent rewards and less junk cluttering up the screen / inventory. Last but certainly not least, we're introducing a new item crafting system based off collectible recipes and rare crafting components that drop in the world.

If I buy from you directly, can I still play on Steam?

To release on Steam, we must first submit a demo of the game for approval. It is hard to imagine that Grim Dawn wouldn't be approved but, of course, we can't say it is guaranteed at this point. Once approved, we believe it will be possible to work out a deal for existing orders to be carried over to Steam as has been done with other indie developers such as Wolfire's Overgrowth: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/02/overgrowth-faq/#q10

As I said though, we fully expect this will be the case but we obviously can't guarantee it until it happens.

Will Grim Dawn use DRM that TOTALLY screws me over?!

Our goal is to screw you over as little as possible with DRM. We don't plan to use any DRM in our direct downloadable version of the game. If we work out a distribution deal for a boxed copy with a publisher, they may have their own DRM requirements but it is something we will fight to avoid.

I don't know if people would consider this DRM or not but one thing we are planning to do is authenticate your game-key in order to join multiplayer match-making on services like Steam. If you have a legitimate retail copy of the game, you shouldn't even notice this. It will have no effect on LAN or single player.

I bought a game key but I can't download the game WTF?!

Grim Dawn is still in development and is not yet available to download. Your game key will enable you to download the applicable version of Grim Dawn as soon as it is released. Once that happens, you can be certain that we will make a big deal about announcing it. We will also email all key-holders to let them know the game is ready to download.

If you bought a game-key thinking Grim Dawn was already available to download or didn't realize how long it may be until release, we will be happy to grant refunds as long as we have sufficient funds to do so. The last thing we want is unhappy fans. Please contact us at support@crateentertainment.com to request a refund and simply state that you don't want to wait for release. To process your request, we will need your game-key and / or the email you used to register.

So when is this game going to be done?

We're working insane hours to get something playable into your hands as soon as we can. However, we also want to make a great game that will meet your high expections when we release it. Development is sometimes slow and difficult to schedule because Crate is a very small, "self-funded" (read as mostly unfunded) team and some of our teammembers have to work day-jobs at other game companies to pay the bills.

That said, we hope to release an alpha in 2011 but, after all the blood and sweat we've invested in this game, we don't want to rush something out the door before it is ready. I think we all want this game to be a success, so ultimately, we can only say that it will be done when it is done. So please be patient with us; it will all pay off in the end!

When you add Grim Dawn to your library, the game won't actually be available to install or play until it goes live tomorrow May 15th, between 10am and 12pm Eastern Time.

How do you guys get into alpha?