GRIM FOREST – FEATURE PREVIEW

2025 is closing out with what is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious and transformative updates in the history of RAID: Shadow Legends. Similar to landmark releases like Doom Tower, Hydra, and the Cursed City of Sintranos, Plarium's newest endgame feature—Grim Forest—is poised to redefine progression, exploration, and long-term account growth.

This is more than another battle mode. Grim Forest is a shifting, malicious landscape with its own rules, its own rewards, and its own personality. For veteran players, it's an entirely new endgame ecosystem; for mid-game players, it's a fresh challenge that scales with ambition rather than raw power. Grim Forest is not simply played—it is survived.

Welcome to the Gloom Lands. Welcome to Grim Forest.

Grim Forest is a level-55+ exploration mode built around a mutable map system, limited team deck mechanics, and powerful expedition-only upgrades. At first glance, it resembles the branching structure of Cursed City or Doom Tower, but the similarities end there. This feature pushes deeper into roguelite territory, offering unpredictable routes, hidden danger, and the constant pressure of navigating through fog-covered terrain.

Progression requires a new activity resource, Distorted Energy, exclusive to Grim Forest. Every action—from clearing combat stages to interacting with points of interest—demands careful resource management. Players are not expected to brute-force this mode with a stacked roster; instead, Grim Forest emphasises preparation, decision-making, and efficient exploration.

Upon entering the Forest, players see only a shroud of rolling mist. Each Stage you clear pushes the fog back just enough to reveal the nearby area, with the wider map remaining unreadable until approached.

Even though layouts shuffle every monthly rotation, the silhouettes of future Stages are visible at a distance. You always see where to go—just not what awaits you.
This creates deliberate tension: you plan your direction, but every step forward could reveal combat, treasure, or something far stranger.

Grim Forest works on a monthly reset cycle. However, unlike Doom Tower or Sintranos, each rotation rearranges the entire landscape. Stage positions shift, routes unfold differently, and even Normal and Hard modes feature entirely distinct layouts. The Hard mode also hides an extra region—reserved only for players looking for the most punishing content RAID has ever offered.

Despite the resetting map, exploration is supported by a boost system that encourages experimentation rather than forcing perfection. Temporary expedition buffs obtained during a run significantly empower even smaller rosters, making the mode both challenging and widely accessible.

Grim Forest offers far more than linear combat. Its Stages include battles, loot caches, special encounters, and mysterious nodes that can reshape your entire run. Some Stages are brutal gauntlets, while others exist purely to reward the curious.

This mode's design encourages backtracking, risk-taking, and avoiding combat when it isn't optimal. A successful expedition requires knowing when to push forward, when to divert into side paths, and when to hunt rewards instead of enemies.

Unlike traditional content, you cannot bring your entire roster into Grim Forest. Players must assemble Team Decks, selecting only a limited pool of Champions for the entire expedition.

This dramatically elevates decision-making:

• Which Champions have flexibility across multiple Stage types
• Which roles can be compressed or substituted
• Which picks scale best with temporary expedition boons

Even whale rosters cannot simply overpower the mode—your choices matter.

Running Grim Forest is not about clearing a linear sequence of encounters. Each expedition unfolds as its own journey, and many of the treasures discovered grant unique power boosts usable only within this mode.

These boons support smaller accounts by letting mid-tier Champions punch far above their weight. Meanwhile, stronger accounts gain even more strategic depth by discovering synergies exclusive to the Forest.

And importantly, not all rewards are temporary. Many treasures persist outside Grim Forest, turning each successful expedition into long-term progression for your account.

Grim Forest is shaping up to be RAID's most ambitious content release since Hydra. It blends exploration, roguelite decision-making, shifting maps, lore-driven worldbuilding, and long-term account enrichment into a single mode.

For veteran players hungry for a fresh endgame experience, this is a massive new frontier to conquer. For mid-game players, this mode offers power boosts and rewards that don't rely on overwhelming rosters.

This is more than another dungeon. It's a living, hostile world waiting to test every edge of your roster and your strategy. Grim Forest is set to close out 2025 with one of the biggest gameplay shakeups the game has ever seen—and we can't wait to descend into the mist.