Grim Reach Idle

Skilling idle RPGs live and die on their sidebar — the list of trainable professions running from 1 to 99, each one a separate little economy of resources and experience. Grim Reach Idle's sidebar will read as instantly familiar to anyone who's spent time with Melvor Idle: Combat, Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing, Smithing, Cooking, Farming, Foraging, Thieving, Crafting, Jewelcrafting, Runecrafting, Herblore, each capped at level 99 in numbers that will land as a direct wink — or a direct lift, depending who you ask — to anyone who knows where that specific cap comes from. Several of Grim Reach Idle's own reviewers have already made that comparison explicit, and it's the single most important thing to understand about this game before deciding whether its price is worth paying.

What's genuinely new here

To Heartforge Studios' credit, Grim Reach Idle doesn't stop at reskinning a familiar structure in darker colours. The standout addition is its 28 named Elite Champions — bosses that stalk the game's zones on their own independent timers rather than sitting in a fixed dungeon waiting to be farmed. When one surfaces, you get a notification, a fifteen-minute countdown starts, and then it's gone until its timer cycles again. Each Champion guards a unique drop, tracked in a codex and on an in-game bounty board, giving skilling sessions a layer of real-time urgency the genre rarely attempts. Layered on top of that are seven weekday Blessings — real-calendar effects that reshape how the Reach behaves depending on which actual day you're playing, from richer beast loot on some days to faster combat on others. The store page is explicit that these are "deliberately mild, no FOMO," and nothing in the review sample contradicts that framing.

The newest system, New Haven, arrived roughly two weeks into Early Access: a settlement you build across 15 structures over three ranks, placed freely on a hand-painted map, each one granting a permanent account-wide bonus — longer offline progression caps, more bank space, faster skilling. It's a genuinely different direction for a genre that usually stops at prestige resets and gear tiers, and its arrival this early in Early Access is a reasonable signal that Heartforge is building toward differentiation rather than resting on the systems it launched with.

The comparison its own players keep making

Read enough of Grim Reach Idle's ten early reviews and a pattern becomes impossible to miss. A Chinese-language review states flatly that the game is "a complete copy of Melvor," arguing that beyond stronger art direction there's nothing new here, and specifically calls it not recommended given it costs more than the game it's compared to. An English reviewer with over 90 hours logged is more measured but reaches a similar conclusion: "a coherent/solid Melvor style game… there is nothing unique about the game," singling out equipment stat rolls as the one meaningful departure. A separate Chinese review is more forgiving — praising the visuals and the randomised elite gear system — while still flagging the price as "a bit high."

This isn't a case of one loud complaint distorting the picture. It's a specific, repeated observation from players who otherwise range from lukewarm to genuinely enthusiastic about the game, made independently across three different languages. That consistency is worth taking more seriously than a single review would be, and it should shape expectations directly: Grim Reach Idle earns its "Mostly Positive" rating as a well-executed entry in an established format, not as a fresh take on one.

One review — in German, praising a "solid game" after more than ten hours — includes a striking aside: it describes Grim Reach Idle as "purely made with AI." This review has no way to independently confirm or deny that characterisation, and reports it only as that specific reviewer's own account rather than a verified production detail. Readers curious about it should treat it as one player's impression, not an established fact about how the game was built.

Price, and what it buys

At NZ$7.89, Grim Reach Idle sits above what several of its own reviewers consider the genre's going rate, and that comparison specifically to Melvor Idle — a game with a free browser version and a low-cost expanded edition — is the most concrete, checkable value complaint in the review sample. What that price does buy, according to the store page and unchallenged by any review here, is a clean promise: no microtransactions, no save wipes, and compatibility preserved across every future update. Three substantial patches landed in Grim Reach Idle's first two weeks — Champions of the Reach, a quality pass, and the New Haven settlement system — which is a genuinely fast cadence for a young Early Access title and a reasonable sign the asking price is going toward real, ongoing development rather than a one-and-done release.

Final verdict

Grim Reach Idle is a well-made, actively developed idle RPG that layers real, distinctive ideas — roaming timed bosses, a weekday rhythm, an entire settlement-building system — on top of a skilling structure its own players keep, independently and across languages, describing as extremely close to Melvor Idle. Both things are true, and neither cancels the other out: this is a solid game built on a foundation it didn't originate, priced higher than the game most often invoked as its template.

If the specific additions here — Champions, Blessings, New Haven — sound like exactly what you want from the genre, that's a fair reason to pay the difference. If you're chiefly looking for a skilling idle RPG and don't already have a strong opinion on Melvor Idle, this is a perfectly good place to start. If you already own that game and are hoping for something that reinvents rather than extends it, temper expectations accordingly.

Players who want that same skilling-and-progression itch scratched inside a persistent, explorable fantasy world rather than a private idle sidebar may also want to look at Wanderer.