Crate Entertainment released Fangs of Asterkarn on July 23 for Steam and GOG, alongside Grim Dawn’s free v1.3.0 update. The expansion adds Berserker and raises the number of possible two-mastery combinations to 45. PC Gamer’s early hands-on reporting similarly found the Werewolf’s movement and pack-clearing pace radically different from conventional early-game ranged play. The new video reinforces that impression, showing why Berserker is a credible starting mastery rather than merely an endgame novelty.
There is an important limitation, though: this is gameplay footage, not a tested leveling guide or GPU benchmark. The uploader says it was recorded on an Intel Arc B570 and Core i3-12100 system, but provides no resolution, graphics preset, frame-rate data, driver version, capture overhead, or reproducible route. It demonstrates that the configuration ran the game for the recording; it does not establish expected Arc B570 performance or certify the system as a recommended target for Grim Dawn v1.3.
Berserker changes the first character decision
Grim Dawn traditionally asks players to select a first mastery, then unlock a second at level 10. That system makes the opening hours matter: the initial mastery supplies the basic attack, survivability tools, damage type direction, and movement options that carry a character until gear and devotion bonuses begin doing more of the work.
Berserker starts with a clearer identity than many older masteries. Crate describes the class as an Asterkarn defender empowered by Mogdrogen’s gifts, using brutal dual-weapon combat when in human form and shifting into beastlike forms when the situation calls for it. The developer’s own guide explicitly frames dual wielding as a natural strength, while leaving room for other weapon types. That breadth is relevant for leveling, when players should use whatever well-rolled weapons and resist gear the campaign actually gives them rather than force an idealized endgame setup.
The submitted footage leans into the most marketable part of the design: rapid melee attacks, then transformation into a Werewolf or Wereraven. The Werewolf is the close-range bruiser fantasy—committing to the pack, moving aggressively, and using claws and lunges—while the Wereraven is the more unusual half of the package. Crate’s advance material established both as core Berserker forms, rather than a single wolf transformation with optional visual variations.
That distinction gives Berserker more range than the name initially suggests. A player interested only in a physical melee archetype can remain in conventional weapon combat. A player chasing bleeding damage, cold damage, shapeshifting, or a hybrid built around a second mastery has a broader set of routes. It also explains why the community’s early theorycrafting has not settled on a single “correct” leveling template: Berserker has credible links to several existing masteries, not one mandated pairing.
The Werewolf footage should not be read as a finished build verdict
The video’s most compelling moments are exactly what a launch-period gameplay upload should show: a new mastery in motion, tearing through early encounters and making the campaign’s familiar monster packs look newly kinetic. But there is a gap between a satisfying low-level power display and an evidence-based claim that a build is strong through Elite, Ultimate, roguelike dungeons, or Ascendant Mode.
Grim Dawn’s damage model rewards specialization. A character spreading points, gear bonuses, and devotion choices across physical, bleeding, cold, and other damage types can look powerful in Normal difficulty while paying a much steeper efficiency cost later. Berserker’s wide thematic palette makes that risk easier to overlook. The video’s description invokes ice and bleed alongside beast-form attacks, but it does not publish a Grim Tools setup, exact skill allocation, devotion route, components, augments, or item progression. Readers can enjoy the showcase, but they cannot reproduce its character from the supplied material.
Community discussions on Crate’s forums illustrate the same point. Players are already exploring Berserker combinations centered on chaos, cold, bleeding, and weapon-based skill triggers. Those discussions are useful evidence of build variety, but they are not balance confirmation; several depend on specific item modifiers or high-level equipment rather than the clean new-character route shown in the video.
The practical advice for a new Berserker remains conservative: pick one main damage direction early, prioritize resistances and defensive layers over spectacle, and treat a second mastery as a solution to a specific problem rather than an automatic pile of extra buttons. A Werewolf that clears Normal quickly still needs capped resistances, health, armor, crowd-control answers, and sustainable damage when Cairn stops handing out favorable fights.
Launch patches have already changed the leveling environment
The more consequential context around any Berserker leveling video is that Fangs of Asterkarn launched into active patching. Crate’s first v1.3.0.1 hotfix, released on July 25, reduced the burst potential of several early bosses and lowered boss health at levels 1 through 35. Those are precisely the levels covered by many new-class playthroughs.
That means an upload published on August 8 cannot automatically be compared with streams and guides recorded around launch week, and the publication date alone does not confirm when the footage itself was captured. Crate also fixed multiplayer crashes involving Werewolf and Wereraven forms, corrected inconsistencies in how the forms’ animations registered main-hand or dual-hand hits, and addressed an issue with the controller hotbar behavior for wereforms.
Those fixes do not invalidate the Berserker concept. They do show that the class shipped with enough technical and mechanical rough edges for Crate to prioritize it in the first hotfix. For solo players, the early-boss adjustment is the material change: the opening campaign is likely to be less punishing than it was during the expansion’s first two days. For co-op groups, the video is less useful as a readiness check, because it does not show multiplayer behavior and the initial version required explicit crash fixes for both beast forms.
Crate has also said it will continue monitoring reports that enemy damage feels too high. That is normal post-launch support for an expansion of this size, but it places an expiry date on confident claims about the best Berserker leveling route. The class is real, the forms work, and the available footage demonstrates the appeal; the final shape of early-game tuning is still being adjusted.
Fangs of Asterkarn is not a standalone Berserker purchase
The video’s enthusiasm can obscure the actual entry requirement. Fangs of Asterkarn costs $18.99 in the United States, but Crate’s official game guide specifies that it requires the base game, Ashes of Malmouth, and Forgotten Gods. A player who owns only vanilla Grim Dawn cannot buy the new expansion in isolation and immediately create the advertised Berserker.
That prerequisite matters more than the headline DLC price, particularly for returning Windows players who bought Grim Dawn years ago but skipped one of the prior expansions. It also means the Berserker is not available through the free v1.3.0 update. The free patch brought broad quality-of-life work, including modernized controls and interface changes, but the tenth mastery remains part of the paid expansion stack.
PC players currently have access through Steam and GOG. Xbox players do not have an equivalent date yet: Crate had initially said the Xbox release would follow after a delay, likely in August, but the official Grim Dawn site still lists Fangs of Asterkarn as “coming soon” to Xbox. As of August 9, that is the status that matters, not the earlier estimate.
The useful conclusion from the gameplay
The Berserker video succeeds as a first look at the feeling Crate was selling: combat that starts with familiar Grim Dawn melee and can abruptly turn into a fast, beast-form assault. It is especially valuable to players who have spent years with the game’s existing nine masteries and wanted a reason to begin another campaign from level one.
What it does not provide is the information required to copy the build, judge late-game viability, assess multiplayer stability, or evaluate Arc B570 performance. Those omissions are not fatal for an entertainment upload, but they are material for players deciding whether to rebuild an old character plan around Berserker.
For Windows players who already own the required expansion chain, the actionable news is simple: Berserker is available now on Steam and GOG, and it is viable as a campaign-starting mastery rather than content locked behind Asterkarn’s endgame. Treat early footage as an introduction to the class’s speed and forms, then build around the current patch notes—not an unlabelled recording date—before committing to a long Ultimate or Ascendant Mode run.
References
- Primary source: YouTube
Published: August 8, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC
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Fangs of Asterkarn - Official Grim Dawn Wiki
Fangs of Asterkarn is the third expansion pack for Grim Dawn, announced in August 2023.[1] It sends players to Asterkarn, the western territories of Cairn. The expansion was released on July 24, 2026. Some features will be introduced by post-release free content updates. A new tenth mastery, the...grimdawn.fandom.com
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Say I wanted to make a berserker focused on chaos damage and with some self sustain. Is occultist or demolitionist a better 2nd class? Demo has reductions to enemy chaos % and also flat resistances. It also gives bo…
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