Grim Dawn Interview, Expansion Planned
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The folks at NextPowerUp have cranked out a lengthy interview with Crate Entertainment's Arthur Bruno and Kamil Marczewski about their forthcoming, crowd-funded, and Titan Quest engine-powered action RPG Grim Dawn. Topics include the success they've had with Kickstarter and Steam Early Access, how player feedback has helped shaped the development of the game, their decision to build the game on the TQ engine, their plans for an expansion pack, and more:
Nathan: One of the things I noticed about Grim Dawn is the real dedication to a "grim" game. One of the aspects of this is that even the best equipment and armour still looks rusty, old and battered in most cases. Was this a design decision from the very beginning and how did you decide on that direction?
[KM] We wanted to tell a convincing story of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is struggling to survive among the ruins of its once mighty civilization. To achieve this, every facet of the game had to fit the narrative. That isn't to say that everything looks like it has been cobbled together from scrap. Many higher end items and uniques represent equipment from before the fall of mankind and look appropriately impressive.
[AB] Yeah, I'd say a good portion of the early to mid-level gear still retains some of that make-shift, cobbled together look but there are some cleaner, more impressive looking epics that can drop now and no one has seen the best items yet, as they won't start to appear until we raise the level cap further.
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Nathan: Is the Titan Quest engine still holding up for the title, and were any other engines considered beforehand, like Unity?
[KM] We made significant changes to the engine, including fixes to old bugs and the addition of many new features, so it has been an excellent starting point but we've also come along ways. Given that the project originally started with just two people, going from scratch with another engine was simply not an option. Without access to the TQ engine, there would have been no Grim Dawn.
[AB] As Kamil said, it was the TQ codebase that allowed us to create Grim Dawn with such a small team. Without it, we'd have needed to hire at least a few more programmers, which we wouldn't have had the money for early on.
We've heavily modified and upgraded the engine though. At its core, some things remain the same but we've added in post effects, rewritten many of the shaders, made many other graphics improvements and also added in new physics and pathing engines.
Nathan: Once Grim Dawn is finished, is there word/interest of a sequel to this franchise, or is the team looking at fresh new challenges?
[KM] We have at least one expansion planned, which can be pre-purchased with the Loyalist edition on our website. Whether we do more expansions beyond the first will depend on the success of Grim Dawn.
