Grim Dawn – Fangs of Asterkarn Review: Raven About It

Dawn Patrol

My history with this game goes all the way back to 2016, when I purchased the base game after its 1.0 release and played through the entire campaign and some of its endgame over about 40 hours. I was originally interested in Grim Dawn because so many people called it the true spiritual successor to Diablo II, and in many ways, it lived up to that claim. I came back in 2018 with the Crucible Mode DLC and the Ashes of Malmouth expansion for another 20 or so hours, then returned once more in 2023 with Forgotten Gods for roughly 20 more. That playthrough came as a result of the expansion’s announcement and my desire to get caught up.

Needless to say, we’ve been huge fans of Grim Dawn over the years, and despite the game showing its age, it remains a very competent ARPG, even in 2026. As I said in my Path of Exile 2 first impressions, Grim Dawn is one of the games I found solace in while chasing that Diablo II fanaticism, even if nothing has ever fully brought it back. Few games have me returning across an entire decade the way this one has, and that’s not an accident of nostalgia.

What keeps pulling me back after all these years is the sheer depth of Grim Dawn’s systems. Its itemization can be extremely overwhelming for players, even veterans of ARPGs, and its dual-class system opens up a near endless range of build styles and combinations, which is exactly why the game has so much staying power. The new Berserker Mastery pushes the total number of class combinations to 45, and that’s before you even touch the unique Devotion system layered on top of it all. Add all of that together and it’s easy to see how my playtime has climbed past 135 hours.

Fowl Weather

For Fangs of Asterkarn, I wanted to experience the headline addition properly, so I rolled a brand new character and started leveling the Berserker Mastery from scratch with the goal of exploring its new builds. The class can be built around either its Onslaught attack mechanic or its beastlike shapeshifting forms, and those two styles pull it in genuinely different directions depending on how you spec. I started with an Onslaught-focused build to get a feel for the fundamentals, then checked out both the Werewolf and Wereraven forms to see which one would actually stick with me.

Wereraven won. I almost always prefer playing ranged in ARPGs, and the raven form fits that style in a way the melee-leaning Werewolf never quite did for me. The form definitely felt a bit overpowered in the early game, tearing through content faster than a brand new character probably should, though things evened out as I progressed, and by the later stretches of the campaign it felt properly balanced.

I eventually paired Berserker with Inquisitor to become a Runekeeper, focusing on a cold-centric build that carried me through the rest of the expansion. Like the rest of Grim Dawn’s Masteries, doing one combination is just the start of seeing what the Berserker is capable of. Between the two wereforms, the Onslaught path, and plenty of other possible class pairings to experiment with, the new Mastery alone gives me a reason to keep playing, and I plan on trying other builds with it now that the campaign is behind me.

Pain Threshold

The second perspective for this review comes from FullCleared contributor Alfred Custodio Jr., aka Xellop, who you’ll spot in many of the screenshots. Instead of starting fresh like I did, he dove straight into the expansion with an existing character he had fully geared, taking on the new content at the highest difficulty the game now offers. Together, that gave us a good look at how the expansion feels for both new characters and fully geared veterans.

He was able to clear the entire expansion on Ascendant difficulty, which tells you something important: you don’t necessarily have to farm the new gear to get through the campaign, assuming your previous character was really built. This is important for veterans wondering whether their old mains are obsolete. They probably aren’t, and it’s likely a big reason why there’s no level increase with Fangs of Asterkarn.

There is a noticeable jump in difficulty compared to Ultimate, though, and it’s one worth taking seriously before you commit. Some mobs and bosses just hit a lot harder, to the point where Ascendant could feel overtuned for many people, even those arriving with strong builds. If your gear was borderline before the expansion, expect Ascendant to let you know quickly.

Roll Call

Farming is where the new Ascendant Mode really comes into focus. Once you unlock the Ascension Altar, you can spend crafting materials to bias certain drops, improve reward rates, and increase the odds of encountering specific Ascendant mechanics, with each modifier also making enemies more dangerous. Ascendant Mode also gives heroes and bosses a chance to drop echoes used to ascend equipment and add powerful Ascended affixes. This is the loot chase that will keep veterans running the new (and old) content long after the story wraps up, and it gives Ascendant’s punishing tuning a proper payoff to justify the pain.

That ascension happens at Jornn the Runekeeper (not to be mistaken for my class), where some affixes provide unusual stats, damage conversions, or skill modifiers. Some Ascended affixes can alter a build almost as dramatically as the right Legendary Aspect in Diablo IV, although the two systems function very differently. Fangs of Asterkarn also gives many older Epic items a reason to matter again, letting you use Ashes of Awakening to transform eligible pieces into Legendary versions with stronger stats, skill modifiers, and new procs. Of course, there is a lot of RNG involved in chasing those effects, but this is an ARPG after all. The grind is the point, and Grim Dawn has always focused on that.

The other big feature for many is the long-awaited affix transmutation, which will be familiar to anyone who has played Diablo IV, finally allowing you to reroll affixes on your gear. For a game whose itemization can overwhelm even genre veterans, being able to reroll individual affixes toward a more useful result instead of replacing the entire item is a welcome change. “Finally” really is the operative word here. Also, the new potion system gives you similar control over your health and energy potions, letting you alter their potency, cooldowns, charges, and secondary effects to better suit your build.

Snow Way Around

Content-wise, the expansion’s new zone is massive, and Crate definitely delivered on its claim of size, with a new region that grows the total game world by 32 percent. It took me around five hours to clear the Fangs of Asterkarn story itself, but that doesn’t account for the time I spent leveling a new character, experimenting with the Berserker, and digging into the new endgame systems, which is where most of my 55 hours came from. It’s also worth noting that the expansion requires you to complete content in Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods, which is why both are required to play. If you’re rolling a new character like I did, you’re basically signing up for a full playthrough of the base game and all of its expansions, so expect to bounce around the map a bit.

The zones are gorgeous, especially for a game running on such an old engine, but some areas are very large and empty without a lot of mob density to fill them. Some maps also have these arbitrary blockades that force you to walk all the way around for seemingly no reason at all. This existed in the base game too, though it felt a lot more egregious in Fangs of Asterkarn, and certain zones just felt like walking aimlessly to the next destination rather than fighting my way there.

Storywise, nothing about Fangs of Asterkarn was very memorable for me, and I say that as someone who read all the dialogue. Nothing really stuck, and since I never found the base game’s story that compelling either, this was pretty much in line with what the rest of the game has been. The new main hub city is impressive in size as well, though that also means a bit more walking back and forth depending on what it is you need to do in town, which compounds the expansion’s general fondness for making you travel.

Interface Lift

The reworked UI pushes Grim Dawn into more familiar territory if you’ve played any other ARPG in the last decade, replacing the old horizontal bars with orbs by default, while still letting players restore the classic layout through the options. The overhaul arrived as part of the free v1.3 quality of life update that landed alongside the expansion, bringing an enhanced inventory management system, WASD controls, and an HDR Lighting visual option to every player whether they pick up Fangs of Asterkarn or not. For a 10-year-old game, much of this was needed.

I spent a lot of time with the expansion on my new Steam Machine, and while things are initially a bit confusing on a controller, once you understand it all, it works really well. The game also played well on my ROG XBOX Ally X, where I put in about a dozen or so hours, so handheld and couch players have real options here even before the delayed XBOX version of the expansion arrives.

Without a doubt, the game’s visuals are a bit dated, but not to the point where you feel like you’re playing a 10-year-old game. Between the environmental art carrying the aging technology and the UI rework bringing the presentation up to modern genre standards, Grim Dawn in 2026 presents itself far better than its age suggests.

Worth the Weight

If you’re a fan of ARPGs and have never played Grim Dawn, now is the time. It’s easily one of the best ARPGs out there, although it’s worth noting just how complex the builds can get once you start digging into the systems. If you want to just enjoy the campaign and the story, you definitely can without getting buried in the details, since most builds are competent enough even if you randomly click on things, and there are enough difficulty settings that you can make it through all the content without much frustration.

If you’re a Grim Dawn veteran or a returning player, I think you already know what to expect, both from the expansion and from the quality Crate has put out over the years. This is a very substantial release and well worth the price tag, especially with two more roguelike dungeons on the way as free content updates.

I’m sitting at 135 hours total with the game now, with roughly 55 of those coming with Fangs of Asterkarn, and I plan on putting in even more as I try other builds with the Berserker Mastery. I’ve barely scratched the surface on the new endgame builds, at least by my standards, and I know this game can easily deliver another 50 to 100 hours of entertainment. I’ve seen enough to highly recommend the expansion, though. Ten years in, Crate is still delivering.

Grim Dawn: Fangs of Asterkarn has an official release date of July 23, 2026, for PC via Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store, with an XBOX version to follow. This review is based on a code provided by Crate Entertainment ahead of launch, played on PC, a Steam Machine, and a ROG XBOX Ally X. While FullCleared has affiliate partnerships, these do not influence our editorial content.

Grim Dawn: Fangs of Asterkarn Review Gallery (possible spoilers!)

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