It was a little over three years ago that Grim Dawn, the action-RPG that sprung forth from the ruins of Titan Quest, finished its Kickstarter campaign with nearly double its $280,000 goal. And it was actually two years before that—well before Kickstarter became a "thing" in the videogame business—that developer Crate Entertainment began its own "crowd contributed" funding campaign. Work on the game has been going on for a long time, in other words. But it's just about done.
Grim Dawn has been playable in beta for quite awhile, and Crate announced today that the final section of Act Three is now complete and released. "You may now venture beyond Homestead's north gate into the heart of the Cult of Ch'thon's territory," Crate founder Arthur Bruno wrote in the latest Kickstarter update. "Fight through the Blood Grove, experience the horror of the Ashen Waste and climb your way up through Darkvale to one of the Cult's largest strongholds. Along the way, you may forge an alliance and make a foe between the Order of Death's Vigil and Kymon's Chosen. For the intrepid and observant explorer, many secrets lie hidden along the way."
The latest build increases the level cap to 50, adds a bunch of new epic items, and works in various fixes, tweaks, and balance changes, all of which are memorialized in this changelog. It also brings the game closer to completion, which Bruno said remains on target for late this year.
"Coming up in the next few months we will release a yet unannounced 6th class, the new skill devotion system, legendary items and Act 4, in which you will face the final confrontation with the Aetherials and Chthonians," he wrote. "Thanks for sticking with us on this long journey!"
And a long journey it certainly has been: Grim Dawn was originally expected to come out sometime in 2011. It's available in three different editions at GrimDawn.com, or as an Early Access release on Steam, where it's currently 35 percent off as part of the ongoing Steam Summer Sale.