The contents
🐻 The Berserker
A tenth mastery that shapeshifts into beastlike forms — the first new class since Oathkeeper in 2019, and it pairs with all nine of the others.
🗺️ A 6 km² zone
New territory rather than a remix of old maps, with over sixty bosses across it.
🔺 Ascendant mode
A game mode built to push every dungeon and boss encounter harder than Ultimate does.
🌀 Crucible and Shattered Realm
Thirty more Crucible waves — which need the Crucible DLC — plus new Shattered Realm regions and boss arenas.
Why your old guide is wrong now
- Devotion routes written before July 2026 do not account for anything the expansion moved.
- Shrine checklists made for Forgotten Gods stop where its content stopped.
- Every class tier list predates the Berserker, so a tenth of the combinations is missing from all of them.
- Build guides that assume Ultimate is the ceiling do not consider Ascendant at all.
The Berserker, and why a tenth mastery is a big deal
🐻 It pairs with all nine others
A new mastery does not add one class, it adds nine combinations. Every existing dual-class list from before July 2026 is missing a tenth of the possibilities.
🌗 Shapeshifting
The Berserker transforms into beastlike forms — the first mastery in Grim Dawn built around changing what your character is rather than what it carries.
🕰️ Seven years since the last one
Oathkeeper arrived with Forgotten Gods in 2019. Anyone who learned Grim Dawn between then and now learned a game with nine masteries.
What it does not change
- The devotion cap is still 55. The new act's shrines are more places to reach it, not a higher ceiling.
- The level cap is still 100, set by Ashes of Malmouth.
- The two mutually exclusive factions are unchanged: Kymon's Chosen and the Order of Death's Vigil still lock each other out.
- It adds no eighth act — its region is Act 7, and it pushed the Korvan Basin to Act 8 rather than sitting after it.
Still to verify
Cross-checked on 10 September 2026 against the Official Grim Dawn Wiki's Fangs of Asterkarn page, Crate's own expansion page, and RPG Site's and RPGamer's launch coverage, which agree on the Berserker mastery and its shapeshifting, on the 6 km² zone with sixty-plus bosses, on Ascendant mode, and on the thirty extra Crucible waves needing the Crucible DLC. Sources give the release as 23 or 24 July 2026 depending on where you read it, so this page says July 2026 and no day. What is still unverified is the only thing reading cannot settle — nobody here has played it.