I wrapped up my week at E3 2011 with 30 minutes of Torchlight II with the folks from Runic Games. It is probably good I did not get schedule for earlier in the week with them because being a pretty big Torchlight fan I would probably have kept going back and thrown off everyone’s schedule. All of the enemy slashing, dungeon crawling, loot collecting goodness of Torchlight is back but so much better. The visual style of Torchlight is still there with plenty of color, but Torchlight II looks strikingly better than its predecessor. Part of that may have been the hardware they were running on but that was not the only reason. There is just more detail and polish on everything I saw. Since the release time frame is still 3 to 4 months out there is a lot of time for them to make it even better which is sort of mind blowing. Runic is still a fairly small company so they work on one project at a time. Because of this Torchlight II will be releasing on PC first with a Mac version following shortly after. Once those are out they will turn their sites on a possible Xbox Live Arcade version.
While Runic is still locking down the exact number of players co-op will support out of the box (they are looking at 4 to 8) the fact they are releasing mod tools for Torchlight II means that the community is welcome to up that limit to whatever their hardware and connection can handle. While it will be fun for an occasional diversion to jump into a huge 30 person world I’m most looking forward to playing with a small group of friends working together. Unlike a lot of co-op games being released in Torchlight II you will not be locked into playing the host’s story and quests. Each person joining is open to going wherever they want in the game world and working on their own quests or joining up with the other players and helping them along. Your character is persistent no matter who’s hosting so your quests are always tied to you alone.
At E3 the third of four character classed was revealed. Joining the previously announced Railman and Outlander we now have details on the Berserker class. These savage fighters can channel the spirits of the Wolf, Dragon and Raven. During my hands on time I played as the Berserker class utilizing dual claw blades as my primary weapon. These short blades fit well with the quick and close melee fighting style of the Berserker. The abilities that I was able to use for him were tied to summoning the various spirits to help. He has a pack a wolves who would spawn and run for the nearest enemies and attack them until defeated. I also enjoyed calling in the dragon spirit who breathes fire out in front of your character in an arch which works great for clearing some fighting space.
Even while using a completely new character class Torchlight II feels familiar with fighting and controls working like they did in Torchlight. I’m glad to see that Runic did not change things that worked well but instead are focusing their efforts into making new content and making tweaks to improve the main mechanics of the game.
While all of the spells and abilities have not been completely set yet Runic did confirm that they will function like they did in Torchlight. You can still assign a couple spells to your pet and set your abilities and spells up as you prefer for your character. The exact structure of the skill tree has not be finalized yet either but we will be seeing roughly the same number of abilities and options as we have in Torchlight. Runic recognizes that most gamers find a couple main abilities they prefer for their character and use them the most. Because of this they are making some tweaks to make the other abilities more useful and enjoyable. Like the abilities the pets have not yet been announced for Torchlight II. During my play time my pet was a mongoose/honey badger, but Runic did confirm that pet may not make the final cut for the game’s release.
If you’re a fan of RPGs, dungeon crawlers, loot or just fun games be sure to keep an eye out for the release of Torchlight II. With all the new additions, like co-op and the over world, Torchlight II looks to be even better than its predecessor, but while staying true to what made it great.
