Recent reviews by Vault Tech Tips

Starbreeze has been promising offline mode for a year. I finally buy the game on sale. Starbreeze goes on stream "sorry, we can't do offline mode".
I hope this company gets sued into the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ground.

WHEN AC8 BAMCO

EDF but realistic.
Crashes every 5 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minutes.
Will be a really good game in like a month when somebody decides to fix it.
Wish it didn't have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ antivirus. If it didn't, guaranteed community would have fixed it by now.
Enjoy every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minute of getting blown up by my teammate's grenades and air support. Wish I could enjoy it and also actually get the xp and currency I earned throughout the mission by getting to finish the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mission.
Seriously, if you're going to make your game this crash happy, have it reward me instantly rather than needing to make it to the end of the damn mission.

♥♥♥♥ YOU BALTEUS YOU PIECE OF ♥♥♥♥ AUSTIN 3:16 SAYS I JUST KICKED YOUR ASS
TOOK ME 15 TRIES BUT WHO'S COUNTING
GAME OF THE YEAR ALL YEARS

PUT OFFLINE MODE IN PAYDAY 3 OR ELSE.

I wish there was a "meh" option. For what's here right now, I'd only pay the 40 bucks if you're a 40K fan, because this is pretty much the best action game we've gotten in, hm, when did Space Marine launch? Jesus Christ that was a decade ago, okay. Combat's great, wish we didn't have to struggle for ammo, never felt like I was running short too often in L4D, Fatshark should take notes, but use of your melee should help, just make sure you save some ammo in case the ranged enemies pin you down. Really important you stick close to your teammates, you need the toughness.
Big problem, that everyone's pointed out by now, is that there's very little content actually available. The skeleton of the game is pretty much all there, barring the crafting system which I never cared for anyway, but there's very little meat to this game right now.
I hope they remedy this in the future, but it won't matter if the servers die out long before then, and if they do there's no bringing this back from the dead. What's the point of a co-op shooter without people to play with

Edit: Steam asked me to revise my review. So I am. Fatshark promised free DLC, and instead we get to pay for the DLC, and the cosmetics. That's right, the cosmetics for the new class don't even come with the class DLC.
So, yeah, they've improved the game, and it still has a playerbase, but the developer has shown that they don't deserve your business. And if I could refund the game at this point, I would.
Go play Helldivers instead.

Air Raider gameplay: Become Raytheon, Destroyer of Bugs. The ultimate final word in war crime simulation.
Remember, the alien soldiers you're killing look JUST LIKE HUMANS, but their skin is green, so blasting them with napalm and space lasers is also technically a hate crime. But now they know how strong Phobos is!

Fencer gameplay: "Breaking news. Local construction worker in power armor has declared himself "F*CKING INVINCIBLE". He currently holds the record for fastest man alive, and is attempting to kill God with a giant hammer. More at 11."

Wing Diver gameplay: Random hentai noises interspersed with gigantic plasma explosions and beeping from your power core running dry. Told she has to stop an alien invasion to save mankind, wore her favourite pair of jean microshorts to the occasion. Her best weapons will give your teammates an epileptic seizure. The class of choice for hopeless weebs and people who want great mobility but don't have enough braincells to use Fencer correctly. Will die if an alien breathes on her wrong.

Ranger: Starship Troopers simulator. A normal dude with not one but TWO guns. Almost fitting that he feels underpowered. Painfully restricted mobility options. Sprinting without the right equipment is slower than mashing the roll button and you can't even shoot. Very low skill floor, high skill ceiling, but many weapons feel very underpowered on the high difficulties. Teamwork becomes necessary for this class.

If I could mod the game, I'd give Ranger a third weapon slot, like Air Raider, and a second equipment slot dedicated to vehicles, instead of being forced to choose between a sprint enhancer or a vehicle. This still wouldn't make him as strong as Fencer, not by a long shot.

Really the Ranger being underpowered is my only criticism of the game. I'd tweak some of the balance in other places as well, but it's an EDF game, you didn't come here looking for balance. Game's exactly what it says on the tin, there's a ton of content and weapons to discover, the voiced dialogue is f*cking hilarious, and yes the online is still active and you'll have little trouble finding two or three people to play with. The only good bug is a dead bug, so join the EDF today!

Final Rating: EDF! EDF! EDF!/10

So, 13 hours in is not a long time for a game like this, it could easily turn the tables on me and start namecalling my mother 200 hours in or something, I don't know, but if I'm 10+ hours into a single player game and enjoying my time, clearly it's doing something right.

But the reason I want to write down my thoughts now while they're fresh is because I don't think I've seen anyone else here praising what I've been enjoying about this game so far.

People keep comparing this game to Diablo, and there's good reason for that, of course. Diablo started this subgenre. But this game is a far cry from the likes of Diablo 3. The "RPG" part of "ARPG" doesn't actually mean much to Diablo 3. Other than levelling your character and getting some choice with skill allocation, there just isn't much actual roleplaying to do, that game is all about farming better gear, that's where 90% of your character's power comes from. And while that is important in Grim Dawn as well, the loot grind is very real, there's just a lot more to do in this game.

Indeed, the only part of this game that doesn't give you much choice is the initial character creation. You get to pick male or female, that's about it. You don't even get to choose your class. That might seem weird at first, until you realize why the game is like that. In Grim Dawn, any character can use any weapon type, any armor type, anything as long as you meet the prerequisites, and the prerequisites never involve your class. Indeed, there are no classes, the mastery system is a tad more complex. You basically get to pick two out of nine total extensive skill trees for that character, and you can spend the skill points that each level gives you however you want. Level the same skill until it's maxed out, level the mastery itself until your unlock the skill you actually want to use, don't level anything at all even, you technically don't even have to pick a mastery to progress. Then you also allocate a point per level to one of your three attributes, or don't.
You can level up to level 100 with the Ashes of Malmouth expansion. And I just love the fact that the game has a unique name for every single mastery combination. Who wouldn't want to play as a Death Knight, or a Purifier.

This is a character progression system that's already brimming with choice, but it's not even my favourite part about the game at this point.

This is an open world ARPG, and the world and dungeons aren't randomly generated at all. In fact they are well designed and brimming with well designed enemies and bosses to kill. You can wake up and immediately start rampaging through this world, exploring every nook and cranny. There's items hidden everywhere, you want to check and break every single shack and house, every single barrel and box, there could be something helpful hidden anywhere. Lore notes sprinkled all over the place, and reading them gives you XP. You'll wander into early game area caves and discover a boss way higher level than what you can handle and you'll nope right out of there, but you'll make a mental note to come back and kill that ♥♥♥♥♥ later.

The exploration feels all the more rewarding because there are no quest markers, no minimap, and the details of the map get revealed as you explore it. It's only through exploration and remembering what the NPCs tell you that you'll finish these quests. Real RPG quests that feel rewarding rather than tedious and help the worldbuilding and storytelling. There's also a sense of progression, since exploring helps you find warpgates, which serve as your instant fast travel in this game, meaning you don't have to keep walking through the same areas killing the same enemies twice. You can also open your own warpgate wherever you might be, but you can only have one personal warpgate open at a time.
But the exploration even ties directly into your character progression, as the Shrines you find throughout the world grant Devotion points you can spend in yet another extensive passive skill tree.

Then there's the factions. Factions are scattered throughout the world, and you can grind your reputation with them, be it positive if they're friendly or negative if they're monsters or bandits, to unlock rewards like high level gear in the faction's shop, services, bounties and rewards for friendly factions or higher level monsters, hero monsters, additional monster spawns and the Nemesis level enemies if you become "Reviled" by the enemy factions, better enemies drop better loot of course.
It's amazing how well thought out this game is, all things considered.

There's even choices that affect you for the entire length of the game. Picking which blacksmith you want to bring to your base serves to determine which buffs you want your blacksmith to give to the crafted items, for instance. There's real dialogue choices you can make with a lot of NPCs that add to what sort of character you want to play in this world.
But on top of all of that, the game is great about QoL. You can respec your skills and devotion whenever you want by paying the Spirit Guide. The inventory system has an auto-sort button. It never feels like the game just wants to waste your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time.
Did I mention there's like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of mods so you can play the game however you want?

"Okay mate, you've praised the game a lot so far, I'm sure there are things you don't like about it though."
Well, it could use some better balancing in places, that's true. Some masteries or mastery combinations definitely aren't as strong as others. Sometimes it feels like you'll find a certain item that fits your current build perfectly and you won't find anything that could even hope to replace it in the context of your build for another 20 levels.
Sometimes great, top tier bosses drop garbage tier loot, but you'll find top tier stuff dropping from random shrines or Totems. That's just how it is with ARPGs I suppose.
The graphics aren't great. People keep telling me this is based on the Titan Quest engine, but I think the Anniversary Edition for that game honestly looks better. I'd definitely like some of the animations and effects to be better and flashier.
But if you're just looking at this game as a direct upgrade to Diablo 2, I guess the graphics are actually an improvement there.
Some people also definitely won't like how dark and gritty everything is, and not everything is voice acted. On the matter of voice acting, nothing aboiut the soundtrack stands out to me but the sound design is definitely cool.

People keep mentioning there's no "seasons" or whatever, there are no constant updates changing up the game and keeping it "fresh" so you can no-life it forever. That much is true. But do you really want to play the same game for 5000+ hours? There's enough content to go around as it is. I'm 13 hours in and I feel like there's at least a hundred more to go on the Veteran difficulty alone, but there's two more above that and new characters to make afterwards too.
There's also no cash shop, no microtransactions, no real money item trading (**** off Blizzard), no battle pass, no lootboxes. You pay 50 bucks for the game and the DLC, and you're done. And when you've completed the game, you move on to the next one. It's that simple, you don't need to overcomplicate it. Games as a service isn't necessary, just keep making new games.

I'll probably discover more I don't like about this game the more I play it, but this is my first ARPG in a long ass time and boy am I enjoying my stint with it so far. How this game isn't more popular is beyond me. Overall my final verdict is a solid 9/11, George Bush did it again, buy this game immediately or the terrorists will win (the terrorists being Activision Blizzard of course).

MADNESS?! THIS IS MADNESS COMBAT!

This game makes my pp (very soft) into the big PP (very hard).

Some comments regarding the game's difficulty and Arena mode: Tweaking still very necessary here and there, Arena mode basically lacks a proper tutorial so you should start playing with the story mode if you don't want to be left very confused about certain things. Sweet future ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game can get very difficult. Oh and they changed the Arena mode A LOT compared to the original so you should definitely go into it with an open mind.
Do note: Some things could be explained a lot better. For example in Arena mode to change your crew's loadout you can press I at any time. You can never pick up more ammo for your existing weapons, but when you beat a wave you can press I to access any backup weapons you have in your inventory. You would never ever guess how you're supposed to throw a weapon in this game if you don't play the tutorial, and that's an integral game mechanic you have to use a lot if you want to level your agility, which is very very important for your survival. You have to hold the weapon pick up button and then press the attack button, basically.
Yeah you should definitely change the default keyboard controls, they suck.

WE'VE WAITED FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, BUT IT'S DONE, AND IT'S FINALLY HERE.
RIP bullet time, we'll miss you.

This game is great.