part 1

Hearken to the call! The time has come to leave the confines of Homestead, pass through the Darkvale gate and venture on through the unforgiving wilds of the Asterkarn Mountains. Within the desolate Fort Ikon, further mystery awaits and troubling events unfold...

Along with this stretch of new content, ending in a new boss battle, we're also rolling out the much awaited Devotion system. The level cap has also been raised to 60.

Devotions provide a new layer of skill customization, changing the feel of character progression, greatly expanding build diversity and adding hours of theory-crafting! Devotion points are earned by restoring broken or corrupted shrines found throughout the world and then spent among a giant sky map of constellations. Each constellation has its own lore, adding to the flavor of the world, stat bonuses on each star and the potential to unlock Celestial Powers, which are attached to your class skills and triggered in different ways. Access to higher tier constellations is unlocked by accumulating devotion among 5 different affinities: Chaos, Order, Eldritch, Primordial and Ascendant.

The remainder of Act 4, which will take you into Necropolis and then down into the final dungeon, is virtually complete and just awaiting polish work and animation of the final boss. It should roll out near the end of the year.

We hope you enjoy the new content and are very excited to see people's reactions to Devotion, which we've all enjoyed playing with and believe add a lot of new depth and fun to Grim Dawn.

v0.3.6.3(b28)

[Major New Features] The area beyond the Darkvale Gates has been unlocked, granting you access to the Black Legion stronghold of Fort Ikon and the wilderness around it. The Devotion System is now available. Venture out into the world and uncover shrines dedicated to the deities and celestial symbols of old. Restore them to their former glory in order to harness their power and unlock new bonuses and effects. The Devotion System is the final layer of character customization in Grim Dawn, offering you a staggering amount of choices to augment your builds and add your personal touch, helping make your builds even more unique. Spend up to 50 points in the Devotion UI across 434 stars and unlock 50 unique Celestial Powers! With the release of new areas to explore, the level cap has been increased to 60.

[Art] Caster weapon art updated to feel more appropriate for melee combat, with larger blades and heftier scepters Updated the mesh and texture on the Occultist's Familiar pet Updated art for various structures and environments in Devil's Crossing, Lower Crossing and Burrwitch. Added signs to more buildings, providing you more insight into the daily lives of people in Cairn. Added signs to the various mines in the Arkovian Foothills and Old Arkovia

[Animation][*]Updated animations and timing on the Flesh Hulk's two default attacks.

[Tech] Updated the method by which areas are loaded as you move around the world, resulting in reduced CPU load and significantly improved performance. The performance gains will depend on your hardware configuration. Various calculation processes have been optimized, resulting in up to a 10% gain in framerates. These changes may cause your equipment to reroll their stats, resulting in different values. This may cause you to lose, or gain, some attributes. The Always Show Loot Filter is now stored on a per-character basis. You can change the loot filter set for your character by pressing the new button on the left side of the HUD. Item stacking has been overhauled. You can now split item stacks without resorting to weird tricks. Item stacks also no longer count as individual items, resulting in smoother connections in Multiplayer. The stack size for crafting materials has been increased significantly. Fixed an issue resulting in a stuck cursor when using Windows scaling Fixed a bug where certain loot containers would not respect their minimum and maximum level range All damage calculations on the Character Sheet now include Conversion Added armor absorption to the Armor Rating tooltip on Character Sheet Tab I Removed the Complete Components button for the extra inventory bags. The main inventory's combine button will now complete Components throughout the entire inventory. Fixed certain skill damage calculations double dipping from active buffs Mind controlled monsters will now award the appropriate reputation when killed Fixed an instance where spamming certain skills could cause the player to attack itself Fixed an issue with beam spells (ex. Aether Ray) that would allow you to cast them while moving Fixed an issue with beams spells that would allow you to accelerate the casting speed of other skills