Grim Dawn Turned Me Into an Altoholic Again

Hi, I’m RJ. And Grim Dawn turned me into an altoholic again.

For those unfamiliar with the term, an “alt” in video game terms is short for alternate character. Basically, it is any character you make besides your main, usually because you want to try a different class, aesthetic, combat style, magic type or fantasy without abandoning your primary one entirely.

An “altoholic,” then, is someone who cannot stop making those characters.

That used to be me in World of Warcraft. My main was a warrior, but I also had a paladin, shaman, hunter, rogue and pretty much everything else on Azeroth. At one point, I had an alt for every class in the game fully leveled, along with extra warriors on other servers so I could play Arena with family and friends.

Part of that was practical. Playing other classes helped me understand their strengths and weaknesses, especially in PvP. If I knew how a shaman, rogue or hunter worked from the inside, I had a much better idea of how to fight them on my warrior.

Soldier from Grim Dawn/Crate Entertainment

But the bigger reason was much simpler: it was fun as hell.

Leveling a warrior and charging into packs of murlocs felt completely different from sending my crocolisk barreling into them as a hunter or throwing up holy defenses as a paladin. The zones might have been familiar, but every class made the world feel a little different.

And now that same altoholism WoW put on me is back.

It started as a quick break from diligently playing Diablo 4. As a fan of ARPGs, I’d heard a lot about Grim Dawn as a worthwhile alternative to Diablo for those who had already tried the also excellent Path of Exile.

And now that’s turned into a full-blown obsession with Grim Dawn’s class system. It wasn’t just the gloomy world of Cairn, or the simple but addictive combat loop, or even the steady, varied and rewarding loot drops. It was all of those things combined with the overwhelming realization that every rare item plucked from the corpse of a fallen foe made some new class combination seem like it could become my next favorite character.

Notice how I said class combination? One of the most enticing aspects of Grim Dawn is that you are not simply picking a class and locking yourself into one identity. You eventually combine two Masteries, which means every character has the potential to become its own slightly different hybrid fantasy.

As of this writing, Grim Dawn has 36 unique dual-class combinations based on its nine base Masteries, and that number will expand to 45 when the next expansion hits (it’s already out on PC, I’m just waiting for it on Xbox).

So far, my main has been a Soldier and Oathkeeper combination known as a Warlord. That alone scratches a very specific itch for me. My usual go-to in RPGs and ARPGs is armored, shield-bearing, durable and aggressive, and the Soldier side of the build gives me exactly that.

Then the Oathkeeper blesses the sword-and-shield motif with just enough righteous fury to make the whole thing feel a bit more divine. Like with Judgment, a holy nova that damages enemies and pulls them in. Or Aegis of Menhir, Grim Dawn’s version of the trademark Paladin holy shield. You can invest points into Aegis of Menhir’s skill tree to make it ricochet between multiple enemies or add effects like fire, acid or retaliation damage.

Oathkeeper from Grim Dawn/Crate Entertainment

The Warlord was basically everything I could have asked for in my first Grim Dawn character: a combination of two of my favorite RPG archetypes.

Then I started leveling other Masteries on the side. Just enough to get a feel for how they played. An Inquisitor, who could dual-wield pistols and debuff enemies with arcane runes. An Occultist, who could hurl acid-splashing evil demonic eyeballs at enemies and summon a magic raven pet. An Arcanist, who could conjure arcane missiles and disintegrating laser beams like a Wizard or Mage. A Demolitionist, who could toss Flash Bang grenades and fire bombs.

That was my first mistake.

Once I started seeing how different each Mastery felt, my brain immediately began spinning out possible combinations. What happens if I take the raw martial stability of Soldier and pair it with something stranger? What if I lean into elemental damage? What if I build around pets? What if I make something tanky but magical? What if I make something cool I don’t even know about yet and stop pretending I’m only going to make one more character?

Later that weekend, I really wanted to try a Necromancer, mostly because it is so different from my usual Soldier and Paladin archetypes. The allure of summoning an army of undead skeleton minions is also strong for me no matter what ARPG I am playing.

But then a ring dropped with a curious stat that added +2 to Briarthorn.

I immediately looked up what a Briarthorn was, saw that it was a tenacious beast born of brambly woods and wild magic from the Shaman Mastery, and thought, “Yeah, I’m trying that now.”

Then I saw that the Shaman class can summon multiple pets, and that those pets have skill-tree choices that allow them to support and buff each other.

And just like that, I had another alt to roll.

That is the pleasurable pitfall Grim Dawn sets so well. Every combination sounds viable enough to try, distinct enough to justify and cool enough to make you wonder if your current character should maybe take a short break while you “just test” another build.

That “just test” phrase is how altoholism snowballs.

The class system would already be dangerous enough on its own, but Grim Dawn makes the addiction better, or worse depending on your free time, by making most build directions feel surprisingly workable. As long as you are not actively picking skills that fight against each other, there is usually some path forward that feels powerful, satisfying or at least interesting enough to keep experimenting.

And of course, there are the loot drops.

In most ARPGs, when I find an item that does not work at the moment for my current character, I either sell it, stash it or mentally discard it. In Grim Dawn, every interesting drop becomes a character pitch.

If I loot a shield with Fire damage that does not quite fit my Warlord, I don’t think, “That is useless.” I think, “Well, that would probably be great for a flame-wielding Oathkeeper build.”

Then I start imagining the character.

Then I start wondering which second Mastery would complement it.

Then I start thinking about whether I already have gear for that.

Then suddenly I am at the character creation screen.

It is a very dangerous loop for anyone with alt-making tendencies, and it feels even more dangerous to me than Diablo 4 because of how different the loot philosophy is between the two games.

Diablo 4 uses a smart loot system, which means gear drops are often tailored toward the class you are currently playing. That has obvious benefits. If you are leveling a Barbarian, you probably want Barbarian items. You do not necessarily want your inventory clogged with gear for classes you are not playing.

But for an altoholic, that same system removes part of the temptation.

In Grim Dawn, loot is constantly turning my head. I might be playing my Warlord, but if a strange pet item, lightning weapon, fire shield or occult caster piece drops, I immediately start looking at it like the guy in the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme.

That is no slight against Diablo 4, by the way. I have played a lot of it, and there is still plenty I enjoy about it.

But when it comes to making me want to roll endless alternate characters, Grim Dawn hits different.

Take that Soldier/Oathkeeper I mentioned earlier, the Warlord I’ve made my main because melee bruisers like Warriors from World of Warcraft, melee builds from Path of Exile and Barbarians from Diablo are usually my thing. That same Soldier foundation can become something completely different depending on what I pair it with.

Pair Soldier with Demolitionist and it becomes a Commando. Pair it with Occultist and it becomes a Witchblade. Pair it with Nightblade and it becomes a Blademaster. The same general starting point can branch into completely different fantasies, from explosives and firepower to dark magic to fast, lethal melee combat.

The other reason this works is that Grim Dawn’s world is well worth revisiting. If the environments were bland or the campaign felt like a chore, rolling alts would not have the same appeal. But Cairn has enough atmosphere, hidden corners, dark lore and rewarding exploration that returning to earlier zones with a new character feels less like repeating content and more like seeing the same nightmare from another angle.

It reminds me of gliding through Green Hill Zone as Knuckles for the first time in Sonic & Knuckles on the Sega Genesis instead of playing as Sonic. The zone is familiar, but the movement, tools and possibilities are different enough that the experience feels new again.

Crossing the rickety bridge out of Devil’s Crossing, pushing through fog-veiled swamps, fighting through burning ruins and rooting bandits out of mines and canyon hideouts all feels familiar but still distinct when I am testing a new build.

But the wonder I get from exploring Grim Dawn’s world is a story for another time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, a two-handed axe with Lightning damage just dropped, and I am trying to roll back into Devil’s Crossing as a Shaman mixed with Soldier. Instead of Blitzing into mutated zombies with my sword and shield, I will be hacking away at them with an axe while blue lightning crackles down from the sky.

Just to test it, of course.