# Grim Dawn: Dark Fantasy Co-op With a Mountain of Loot

Join up to three friends in Grim Dawn’s ruined world, pair character classes, and take on monsters together with shared or personal loot.

[PLAYNEXT](https://playnext.party/) · Published: 10/2/2026

![An armored adventurer fights enemies among columns of fire at the Gates of Necropolis.](https://playnext.party/images/games/grim-dawn/necropolis-battle.jpg)

Grim Dawn is a dark fantasy action RPG where you and up to three friends can fight through a ruined world together. The networked multiplayer supports online sessions and LAN play, with one player hosting and the others joining that world. Your party faces the same Aetherial and Chthonic threats, builds characters around two class choices, and can decide whether loot drops are personal or shared. This is co-op against monsters, though the host can also enable optional player-versus-player combat.

## Cairn is full of people who still need help

The world of Cairn has already suffered its apocalypse. Aetherials have possessed people and spread across the land, while Chthonic horrors threaten what remains of humanity. Your adventure opens near Devil’s Crossing, a prison settlement trying to become a refuge. Roads lead through ruined villages, forts, wild paths, and underground spaces where survivors need supplies, rescue, or help pushing a threat away from their homes.

Quests are the map’s main thread, but they do not lock you into one straight route. You can help communities, decide who to trust, and make choices that change the future of a settlement or its residents. Some decisions are practical, such as which blacksmith to bring back. Others decide whether a group of people survives. Factions add another layer: earning favor with one can set you against another, while reputation opens new quest lines, vendors, and equipment.

The landscape is a hand-built network of regions, with secret caves, hidden rooms, collapsed bridges, and shortcuts. Materials you find can help repair a crossing or open a blocked route. You can restore shrines for points in Devotion’s constellation system, discover riftgates for travel between places you have found, and break through walls that conceal another room or boss. Enemy groups and some objective locations can vary, so a return trip may not play out exactly like the last one.

![Captain Somer presents two dialogue choices in Homestead.](https://playnext.party/images/games/grim-dawn/quest-choice.jpg)

## A party of four takes on the same world

Grim Dawn’s PC multiplayer supports four players total: a host and up to three friends. You can choose online sessions or play over a local network. To start a game, one player hosts with a character; friends join through the multiplayer lobby. LAN sessions can work without an internet connection, while online sessions require an internet connection.

The host’s computer runs the shared world. Internet sessions connect players directly to that host rather than to a dedicated game server, and router or firewall settings can sometimes get in the way. Grim Dawn supports Steam-to-GOG multiplayer when everyone is on the same game version. A multiplayer host requires 4 GB of memory, a useful detail if your group is deciding whose computer will run the game.

When friends join, monsters gain strength and toughness, and the amount of loot rises with the player count. Experience is shared among party members, so everyone can grow while fighting in the same area. The world’s enemies remain the main opposition; this is not a cooperative raid with a fixed role queue or a match built around competing teams. PvP is a separate host option, and the game lets non-party players attack one another when it is enabled.

Hardcore characters add a permanent-risk option. A character that dies in Hardcore is lost, and Hardcore players can only join games hosted by other Hardcore characters. That restriction applies whether the session is a small party campaign or a larger multiplayer group.

## Two masteries turn every character into a combination

The character system gives you room to shape a distinct fighter. Grim Dawn currently has ten Masteries across the base game and its expansions. You choose a first mastery early in a character’s growth, then can add a second at level 10. A Soldier paired with a Shaman, for example, combines weapons and defense with storms, primal strikes, and possible animal companions. An Arcanist can bring elemental and Aether magic; a Demolitionist works with explosives, traps, and firearms; a Nightblade favors blade skills and fast attacks. You are not assigned a fixed multiplayer class role at the start.

The pair of Masteries sets the outline, but your skill points determine what the character actually does. Active skills go on the quickbar, while passive skills provide bonuses in the background or change how another attack works. Items can add their own skills, damage types, and effects. Devotion then adds another layer: shrine points unlock constellations and Celestial Powers that can attach extra effects to your abilities.

Those systems create room for skills to overlap in a party. A Shaman can place a Wendigo Totem that drains enemies and heals nearby allies; another character can bring a shield-heavy kit, area magic, or a swarm of pets. These are examples of what the class tools allow, not a required tank-and-healer setup. Two friends can choose very different pairs of Masteries and still contribute through damage, buffs, debuffs, healing, or crowd control.

## Loot can be personal or a shared pile

Fights reward gear, components, recipes, currency, and the occasional item that sends you back into the inventory screen to compare stats. Weapons and armor come with different damage types, skill bonuses, and random affixes. Better pieces can change which abilities your build relies on, while crafting lets you combine materials and recipes into equipment. The loot loop is a big part of the campaign: clear a dangerous area, check what dropped, adjust your character, then head out again.

The host chooses between two loot modes. Instanced Loot is on by default, so each player sees personal drops from monsters and chests. Free-For-All makes those drops available to everyone in the party. Some monster-equipped items are assigned among players present when the monster dies, even in the personal-loot mode. Iron Bits, the game’s currency, follow the loot setting too: Free-For-All shares a picked-up stack among party members, while Instanced Loot gives each player their own. Friends can also trade items and Iron Bits directly.

![A highlighted weapon appears beside the character inventory and equipment screens at Luther Graves’s Salvage Dealer.](https://playnext.party/images/games/grim-dawn/character-gear.jpg)

The host’s choice changes the small moments between fights. With personal drops, you can inspect what belongs to your build without racing anyone to a weapon. With shared loot, any player can pick up items that another friend might want, and trading covers the rest. Both approaches fit the same campaign; the game lets the group choose how much it wants to coordinate equipment sharing.

## Story co-op is less synchronized than combat

The shared map keeps fighting and exploration together: everyone faces the same enemy packs, paths, and hazards. Conversations work differently. Only one player can read NPC dialogue at a time, though any party member may interact. Main-story updates generally reach the whole party, but some faction quests and bounties require separate progress. Some Fangs of Asterkarn entry and collectible objectives may fail to share correctly. These are specific quest limitations; the central campaign does not regularly split party progress.

Some faction choices are tracked per character, and later faction tasks can depend on each character’s standing. If every friend wants to read each conversation or advance optional objectives together, there can be moments when one person waits or repeats part of a task. The group shares a world and its fights, while some side content keeps individual character records.

## Campaigns, higher difficulties, and arena runs

The main campaign is the natural place to explore Cairn together. Normal, Elite, and Ultimate difficulty give characters increasingly challenging versions of the adventure as you unlock them. Veteran mode adds tougher and more numerous enemies to Normal. Character progression carries forward through new areas, side quests, faction rewards, shrine points, and expanding gear choices, giving a group many ways to extend a shared run beyond the first set of story missions.

If you own The Crucible add-on, you can switch from roaming the campaign to an arena that sends waves of enemies at your group. Every ten waves, the party can take its reward or continue toward a larger payout. Higher Crucible difficulties unlock as you clear more waves. In multiplayer, a Softcore character who falls can return if the surviving allies finish the wave; Hardcore characters do not get that reprieve. The separate mode turns Grim Dawn’s build-and-combat loop into a focused survival challenge.

Replayability comes from different class combinations, equipment drops, branching world choices, difficulty levels, hidden areas, and optional challenge runs. A second character can approach a familiar boss with different skills, damage types, and gear. You can also return to areas for faction reputation, shrines, recipes, or loot. The world keeps the same core identity, but your build and the group’s route through its side content can change from run to run.

Grim Dawn suits friends who want a long action-RPG campaign with a lot to collect and customize, and who are happy to spend as much time discussing a new weapon as clearing another monster pack. It is less suited to a group that wants every quest conversation and objective to advance in lockstep. The strongest shared moments are the chaotic fights, the class combinations, and the pile of loot at the end of a hard encounter; the group follows a shared main story, while some side-content progress and faction standing remain character-specific.

## On Steam

- **Play together:** Online co-op
- **Steam reviews:** Very Positive, 93% positive of 110,087 reviews
- **Playing now:** 4,002
- **Platforms:** Windows
- **Controller support:** Full
- **Developer:** Crate Entertainment
- **Publisher:** Crate Entertainment

[View on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/219990/)

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Source: https://playnext.party/en/games/grim-dawn/

Language: en