With Diablo III on the (near) horizon is Torchlight II even coming out? What happened to that game? The first game was well-received and their was some good buzz for this follow-up. Where did it all go wrong?
Torchlight II
Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Sep 20, 2012
The sequel to Runic Games' Torchlight, it features four new classes, a much bigger world, online co-op play, and a host of other new features.
So how about that Torchlight II?
From Rock, Paper, Shotgun article is putting it close to release after D3. They've been updating their site with new pets or other things so it seems pretty close, putting multiplayer of any kind in a game always tends to increase time spent in development over a single player game.
Torchlight II is about 1/3 the price of Diablo 3. The opening act alone is bigger than all of Torchlight I. It had modding ability, can be played on lan e.t.c... Basically the same game minus the hype and more value for money. No built in gold farming either. Thats getting my money, Diablo III can fuck itself.
The first Torchlight not having co-op was a downer for me and them saying "This won't have multiplayer but the next one might!" bummed me out even more.
And THEN its several years before the sequel comes out. Lost interest.
I don't have that much interest in Diablo 3 either
I loved Torchlight but with Diablo III on the horizon my attention is fully on that. I'll play Torchlight 2 eventually but its not on my radar at this point. As someone else said, it has missed it's window and coming out after Diablo III certainly won't do it any favours which is a damn shame.
Well looks like the release of this is quite close now as there's a page up in the steam store for it - Torchlight II. Plus there's the pre-purchase offer of giving the first one to you also (or gift it to someone).
Torchlight II wont be coming to consoles due to consoles not having enough stuff like pc. Torchlight 1 barely fit the thing on the network that the console uses. Torchlight II much larger.
Playing Torchlight 1 for 57 hours actually burned me out on loot-based action RPGs for good. Torchlight just had so little extra trappings compared to Diablo 2 that after a while, I hated myself for playing it. There's really no story, the environments are quite standard, the enemies are quite standard, the town is quite standard, the abilities are quite standard. It didn't do very much to distract from the fact that it's an endless loot grind.
I guess maybe I'm old enough now to prefer games where my dozens of hours invested in the game lead to something of greater interest than slightly better loot and a few more points in my skill tree. If I ever get the urge to just level up a guy for the sake of leveling him up, I'll probably just drop a little bit of money on something like Legend of Grimrock. I can't imagine buying Torchlight 2, nor do I have any interest in buying Diablo 3.
Seems like they're shooting for summer. It's looking great! There's room for both games in my heart.
They've(wisely imo)taken their time to polish it up, and they've said it'll be after D3. It'll have it's alure even w/D3 launching soon, with its price, mods that are pretty much wide open, 8 player co-op pretty sure, and the online won't be mandatory like Diablo. TL2 will find it's niche and it'll make its way onto XBL given time for sure, despite the current restrictions they're working through.
Maybe not a replacement for D3 but a less expensive alternative, and far more accessible for some that want an alternate good loot driven dungeon co-op grind.
Yeah, if you are into this genre I'm sure Torchlight II would be nice addition. But the masses will go for brand.
When Diablo III had problems in alpha I hoped Torchlight II would reap the benefits. Seems though that Blizzard has gotten Diablo III on track and that is really really bad news for Torchlight.
I know, that only being marginally fan of this genre, I will only pick up one...
I loved the first one, it helped me kick my WoW adiction.
I hope that the second one will have a larger city or possibly more than one.
@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:
£14.99 is very reasonible. Diablo III is £39.99 here.
£30 on Amazon and most other online retailers. That's still double the price, but Diablo is undeniably a much more polished experience.
I loved the original Torchlight a lot, but it really should have aimed for a release before Diablo.. I'll be waiting for a sale now. Between Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2, I'll be busy for a good while. Then there's Borderlands 2 in September.. so yeah, sorry Torchlight.
After spending 14 hours with the first Torchlight, I barely have any interest in the second one. It's a fine enough game mechanics wise, but the whole thing felt so empty. The quests didn't mean anything, the story was non-existent, all three classes were the same as each other, the npcs were all lifeless and uninteresting... And having zero multiplayer killed any remaining interest I might have in the game.
The Diablo franchise actually offers a story, which is much more what I'm looking for than just mindlessly trying to get new loot. Could Torchlight 2 come out and actually improve itself to a point where I might care about it? Sure, maybe, but probably not for quite a while.
@BarrockSame here, but I'll definitely wait a while until I pick it up. As far as I'm concerned Diablo 3 is probably the biggest game this year and if they had managed to put out Torchlight 2 about a month or two before D3's release... now I feel sorry for them.Sad, but true. I really enjoyed the first game, and I'll still play TL2, but Diablo's gonna be getting WAY more clicky time.Missed it's window in my opinion.
@WinterSnowblind said:
@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:
£14.99 is very reasonible. Diablo III is £39.99 here.
£30 on Amazon and most other online retailers. That's still double the price, but Diablo is undeniably a much more polished experience.
I loved the original Torchlight a lot, but it really should have aimed for a release before Diablo.. I'll be waiting for a sale now. Between Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2, I'll be busy for a good while. Then there's Borderlands 2 in September.. so yeah, sorry Torchlight.
I haven't played Torchlight II so I couldn't tell you. From what I played of Torchlight 1 is was more polished than the majority of games I have played. Including Shogun 2.
I'll get Torchlight II, though I'm not sure how much I'll actually play it, mostly due to work. Since I live in China, getting a legit copy of Diablo III will be a lot harder than getting Torchlight II. Plus I lost interested in the Diablo series years ago. I'm more interested in following the Schaefer brothers anyway.
@FateOfNever said:
After spending 14 hours with the first Torchlight, I barely have any interest in the second one. It's a fine enough game mechanics wise, but the whole thing felt so empty. The quests didn't mean anything, the story was non-existent, all three classes were the same as each other, the npcs were all lifeless and uninteresting... And having zero multiplayer killed any remaining interest I might have in the game.
The Diablo franchise actually offers a story, which is much more what I'm looking for than just mindlessly trying to get new loot. Could Torchlight 2 come out and actually improve itself to a point where I might care about it? Sure, maybe, but probably not for quite a while.
I saw an interview where one of the head guys from Runic mentioned that Torchlight 1 was definitely "rushed", and that for TL2, they've actually hired a writer, there are several hub towns on a map and random dungeons you'll find just travelling around. This definitely feels like a more fleshed out product than the original from what I've seen and heard.
I'm pretty excited about it because a lot of these guys worked on previous Diablo games and get what makes an isometric aRPG fun. I think there's room for both Diablo 3 and TL2, pretty sure both will be Day One for me.
Basically what made me unable to play more than a few hours of Torchlight was the overbearing sense of "Yep, I could just play Diablo II and have a better experience", similar to what I felt with Titan Quest. At this point, loot lust for the sake of loot lust doesn't do it for me anymore, and while Torchlight II will have many of the things that would make me interested in it (Multiplayer for one), I'm leaning towards Diablo III. Either way, I'm not going to buy either until I hear some post-release chatter.
@BisonHero said:
Playing Torchlight 1 for 57 hours actually burned me out on loot-based action RPGs for good. Torchlight just had so little extra trappings compared to Diablo 2 that after a while, I hated myself for playing it. There's really no story, the environments are quite standard, the enemies are quite standard, the town is quite standard, the abilities are quite standard. It didn't do very much to distract from the fact that it's an endless loot grind.
I guess maybe I'm old enough now to prefer games where my dozens of hours invested in the game lead to something of greater interest than slightly better loot and a few more points in my skill tree. If I ever get the urge to just level up a guy for the sake of leveling him up, I'll probably just drop a little bit of money on something like Legend of Grimrock. I can't imagine buying Torchlight 2, nor do I have any interest in buying Diablo 3.
Aside from the part where it burned you out, I agree about Torchlight's flaws. It had some art design and decent mechanics, but once the momentum of the loot grind wore off, there was nothing about the atmosphere or story to draw me back. Diablo generally has the atmosphere, and the progression is more obvious. Hopefully that's enough to keep me interested this time around - though it will undoubtedly lose its effect after a playthrough.
... All these people that attack Diablo have no clue... Absolutely no clue... learn some shit before you critisize... I promise you the torchlight creators will be playing D3 with us... if your buying Torchlight and not Diablo 3 and its not because you can't afford Diablo(very unlikely) then your a close minded moron. Don't get me wrong, I love both games... but comparing D3 to TL2 is like comparing apples to oranges... TL2 isn't even in the same league as D3... you will play TL2 for maybe... lets say 30 hours? and then content will be hard to squeeze out... D3 has been designed by an EXPERT TEAM that will make the game have over 200 hours of FUN gameplay... The value for money isn't even close... Stop hating... D3 is being innovative with its mechanics... that's much more than I can say about any other aRPG... TL had two innovations... the dog/tiger which basically saved us from looking at the town with no atmosphere, and the spells based on items but they weren't exactly well balanced.
@gamefreak9 said:
... All these people that attack Diablo have no clue... Absolutely no clue... learn some shit before you critisize... I promise you the torchlight creators will be playing D3 with us... if your buying Torchlight and not Diablo 3 and its not because you can't afford Diablo(very unlikely) then your a close minded moron. Don't get me wrong, I love both games... but comparing D3 to TL2 is like comparing apples to oranges... TL2 isn't even in the same league as D3... you will play TL2 for maybe... lets say 30 hours? and then content will be hard to squeeze out... D3 has been designed by an EXPERT TEAM that will make the game have over 200 hours of FUN gameplay... The value for money isn't even close... Stop hating... D3 is being innovative with its mechanics... that's much more than I can say about any other aRPG... TL had two innovations... the dog/tiger which basically saved us from looking at the town with no atmosphere, and the spells based on items but they weren't exactly well balanced.
Saving this to my text file of examples of dated fanboyism.
@Jazz2: It'll definitely still do fine. I just don't think it's going to sell as well as it could have, if it were released earlier.
@ModerateViolence said:
@gamefreak9 said:
... All these people that attack Diablo have no clue... Absolutely no clue... learn some shit before you critisize... I promise you the torchlight creators will be playing D3 with us... if your buying Torchlight and not Diablo 3 and its not because you can't afford Diablo(very unlikely) then your a close minded moron. Don't get me wrong, I love both games... but comparing D3 to TL2 is like comparing apples to oranges... TL2 isn't even in the same league as D3... you will play TL2 for maybe... lets say 30 hours? and then content will be hard to squeeze out... D3 has been designed by an EXPERT TEAM that will make the game have over 200 hours of FUN gameplay... The value for money isn't even close... Stop hating... D3 is being innovative with its mechanics... that's much more than I can say about any other aRPG... TL had two innovations... the dog/tiger which basically saved us from looking at the town with no atmosphere, and the spells based on items but they weren't exactly well balanced.
Saving this to my text file of examples of dated fanboyism.
great substitute to having an actual argument as to why you disagree... I am not loyal to any series... I can safely say i've played and finished every RPG that's ever gotten unanimously(not exclusively though) good ratings and spend time on all their forums when i'm unsure of mechanics.
Give me Torchlight 2. I had more fun with the first one than I had with the previous Diablos. Torchlight is the Saints Row to Diablos GTA. Not quite as refined technologically but with more of a focus on fun factor.
They were trying to get it out before Diablo 3, right? Maybe they just thought Blizzard would delay D3 again (which can absolutely still happen, it´s Blizzard).
I liked Torchlight quite a bit, but it got boring real fast.. I think I realized that I kinda like Diablo for the story and atmosphere.. weird!
So, maybe Torchlight 2 will do okay because of the low price and frequent steam sales.. let´s just hope it won´t be um.. swept away, alone under stormy skies? /drama
@ModerateViolence said:
@gamefreak9 said:
... All these people that attack Diablo have no clue... Absolutely no clue... learn some shit before you critisize... I promise you the torchlight creators will be playing D3 with us... if your buying Torchlight and not Diablo 3 and its not because you can't afford Diablo(very unlikely) then your a close minded moron. Don't get me wrong, I love both games... but comparing D3 to TL2 is like comparing apples to oranges... TL2 isn't even in the same league as D3... you will play TL2 for maybe... lets say 30 hours? and then content will be hard to squeeze out... D3 has been designed by an EXPERT TEAM that will make the game have over 200 hours of FUN gameplay... The value for money isn't even close... Stop hating... D3 is being innovative with its mechanics... that's much more than I can say about any other aRPG... TL had two innovations... the dog/tiger which basically saved us from looking at the town with no atmosphere, and the spells based on items but they weren't exactly well balanced.
Saving this to my text file of examples of dated fanboyism.
Don't forget... abuse of... ellipsis...
@Superfriend said:
They were trying to get it out before Diablo 3, right? Maybe they just thought Blizzard would delay D3 again (which can absolutely still happen, it´s Blizzard).
Why, they never delayed the release date once. Dunno if they even did it for any game ever.
They're the "it's done when it's done" guys, remember? Every time you read "Diablo 3 delayed" it was some news spin on it.
Torchlight was great to fill the space between Diablos, but I got my pre-order for Diablo 3 in. I hope Torchlight 2 doesn't get buried when Diablo 3 comes out because I would like to check it out after I have had my fill of Diablo 3 and I want to see it do well, I just can't do both at once.
Torchlight always felt like a Fate clone which was always the little kids' Diablo to me. I just don't remember it as fondly as I do the Diablos.
I like this opinion, I think I'll be doing the same.Torchlight II is about 1/3 the price of Diablo 3. The opening act alone is bigger than all of Torchlight I. It had modding ability, can be played on lan e.t.c... Basically the same game minus the hype and more value for money. No built in gold farming either. Thats getting my money, Diablo III can fuck itself.
Please Log In to post.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment