Torchlight II will feature a narrative that'll take us across a continent. That is the initial clue that Runic Games is attempting to lift the series out of the doom and gloom and into differentiated areas, a not-so-subtle flip-flop for a game whose predecessor was defined by, in part, its one-dungeon confines. But what kind of places will we see above the ground? According to Runic CEO Max Schaefer, a variety of cities and open expanses will welcome us when we adventure in the game at some point in Spring 2011.
"People felt a little claustrophobic with the structure--Torchlight is just one town [Torchlight] and a series of dungeons underneath. So, the obvious remedy for that is to make big overworlds and different cities," Schaefer told Gamasutra. "So, we're doing that."
This'll be a meaningful change that addresses one of the easiest criticisms one could lob at the original hack-and-slash title: the constant retreading over the same, almost never-changing ground.  Â
== TEASER ==Torchlight II's MMO-like approach with its co-op, and now apparently its world map, doesn't mean Runic Games has scrapped its plans to create a Torchlight MMO. We discovered that when speaking with a representative. But Torchlight II does mean the Torchlight MMO won't be the next title from Runic.
"The more we thought about it, we could give people what they're asking for, and give them a nice, co-op Torchlight experience a lot faster than we could do an MMO," Shaefer told Gamasutra. He explained that Runic felt there was a void and wanted to fill it because, well, it "ran out of excuses not to do it." Kinda like how we're running out of excuses not to build a one-use time machine to Spring 2011. Â Â
Isn't this kind of all of the stuff that they said they where working on when the game first came out? Don't get me wrong, I am glad it is free to play and right around the corner, just thought that this info was already out there.
I love the first game. The great thing about it is that it works flawlessly on my laptop with crappy video card ( intel X3100). This is a must have for any gamer with a non gaming laptop.
Out of all the games I've bought during a Steam sale, the $5 I spent on Torchlight was my favorite. Looking forward to the Steam sale on Torchlight 2:)
I'm riding a time machine called Earth into the future at a rate of one second per second. Â At this rate, I'll be in spring of 2011 in spring of 2011.
Man just when I bought the first one which I think I'm probably never gonna play again... Unless I'm at uni suffering hard from videogame withdrawal. Oh well... Looks cool but i'll probably skip it and wait for the MMO unless this turns out to be awesome.
Again, Spring 2011 is too early. Aim for the end of 2011. You want people to think "wow, I miss that game, I'm eager to play more!" rather than "didn't I just finish that?". Also, it seems like they're missing out on a great opportunity to milk us for cash. Just retain the single game and charge cash for each additional city. Want to play in all five cities? Pony up $10 each.
It's a sequel, it should have different cities and expanses That's a given..... Â
God, I hate Nicholson Kessler is alright; he's just an intern afterall But Nicholson should just save what dignity he has left and stop making news shitty news stories
As a huge fan and advocate of the original Torchlight, I'm really glad to hear this.  As much fun as I had with the first game, having all of the same NPCs over so many hours started to wear on me and feel like it was actually going back in time from this team's Diablo II. Even if the difference is mostly aesthetic, there's a sense of accomplishment when you've "completed" an entire city and get to move to the desert jewel, the marsh, the northern city...  I'm sure Runic's classic art style will make these cities fun to explore and learn all over again.  And I still need someone to announce, "You have quite a treasure there in that Horadric cube!"
Will the game feature the need to use more than one or two attacks? I love the game, but after a few years of WoW, I need some more combat depth than using ranged lightning to kill everything.
They are still making an mmo. Â But I think the success of Torchlight has made them fully commit to a sequel. Â I think the original plan was make a smaller game (Torchlight) while they worked on the bigger mmo game. Â Â
Cool. Torchlight looked like Diablo, and Torchlight II apparently will look like Diablo II. Wonder if we'll see Torchlight III before Diablo III comes out.
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