I got a pretty huge kickstarter email last night:
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are finally nearing the end of the first and longest leg of this epic journey. Thinking of all the support we received from backers on KS to help make this possible, I felt this would be the most fitting place to first announce the release date. Grim Dawn will be officially released from Early Access this Thursday February 25th!
Additionally, Build 31 with it's monumental change log, just went live and you can experience the full game right now as it prepares to disembark from Early Access forever. It?s been almost seven years of my life completing this game and it?s rather surreal that it?s finally here. I?m not sure I believe it.
My routine for so long as been to wake up and go work on Grim Dawn until it?s time to go to bed. I started this single and childless and now I?m married with two kids (I guess Jeff Goldblum was right ? life finds a way). The project waxed and waned and waxed again as early volunteers joined up but then drifted off, I found myself working alone some days and things ground to a crawl, then KS gave it a kick in the ass and we were off again with new team members. This went from a crazy dream I knew was against the odds to the current reality of a 10-person team. I struggled through PayPal freezing our first crowd-funding account, lead poisoning, the passing of family members, all manner of technical and hiring challenges. It?s almost hard to believe looking back on it all.
We?ve delivered a lot of content beyond the promise of our Kickstarter, including an extra Act, a sixth class, major gameplay systems such as devotion and many more hours of gameplay than we originally talked about. Thanks to the success of Grim Dawn in Early Access, we?ve also been able to add VO for main quest dialog and an animated intro trailer, which are included in the new build.
I say this journey is only nearing the end because, even with the completion of Grim Dawn, we still have some work ahead of us. Shortly after the full release or maybe even along with it, if we can manage it, we will release the DRM-free build and virtual rewards. I?m currently emailing with the folks at Humble Store to figure out how to set that up. They have a nice system for facilitating the distribution of KS rewards now? unfortunately, we were one of their first pre-existing clients to run a KS, so our data / configuration on their system is a bit convoluted and we?re trying to figure out the best way to release things. I?m hoping we?ll have that set up within a week though.
The virtual goods have all been finished and are also just waiting for us to set up the distribution for them. Basically, we have a bunch of logistical stuff to sort though. We?ve also began producing physical rewards, beginning with the map and poster. We?ve prepared the final art for that and are currently talking to a print shop. The Boxed copies will come later since we?ll need to take the final build and master discs from it. We also need to find someone to produce the box. That and omg, I need to write the Crate Story? that?s going to be quite a tale.
Following release and whatever bug-fixing and polish work we still need to do, work will begin on future updates, modding tool release, Survival Mode (actual name yet to be decided) and the expansion. I?d be sad to see the end of Grim Dawn, fortunately, this isn?t the end. There is more Grim Dawn to come and also we may see the start of new things in the coming months.
It?s fantastic to come out of this with not only a complete game that?s bigger and better than I dared imagined it would be but also a team and company on solid footing,capable to launching new projects on our own. I sincerely and heartily thank you all for the part you played in making this happen. I hope you enjoy all of the hard work and passion that went into, not only completing this game but filling it with tons of details, lore, secrets and personal touches.
Until next time ? good hunting
- Arthur and the Crate Team
