At first glance, you will feel a familiarity with Torchlight II. The art style hasn't changed dramatically, though they seemed to have spruced up some of the textures. You will also see many faces in the crowd of mobs you are accustomed to seeing: skeletons, ghouls, zombies, etc. Lastly, you'll be right at home with the mouse clicking and skills bar you used in the original. That's about where the similarities end.
I noticed the difference immediately when I sat down with Max Schaefer (CEO of Runic Games) and President Travis Baldree to play Torchlight II and we created our game via a local LAN connection. You read that right, folks, the LAN party is not dead and Runic Games is supporting it. Of course, you'll still be able to connect online with your friends across the world (or use matchmaking) to tackle dungeons and collect loot. They definitely want you to have that experience, but feel the necessity of still including the option of local LAN play.
Outside of the LAN support, the other big announcement for Runic at E3 this year was the reveal of the Berserker class. The Berserker is a dual-claw-wielding warrior-sage. For this hands-on demonstration, he was dressed in arctic furs and carrying half-moon blades that curved over his knuckles. He calls forth animal powers for his special skills like dragon's fire or an area-of-effect attack of wolves or a bear punch. Previously, Runic has announced the Railman and the Outlander, with a fourth class yet to be announced. All four classes will allow you to be male or female, giving you more freedom and customization, especially where armor is concerned.
I didn't have enough time to play around with this during my demo, but in the newest trailer, you can see Torchlight II will feature armor sets that will give you special bonuses for full sets or will allow you to mix-and-match to your heart’s content. Outside of the claws there will also be some new weapons in the mix, including a more shotgun-esque area of effect weapon that sounds really awesome. Something I experienced with both the Berserker and the Outlander was a more dynamic, fluid integration between the weapons in my hand. When timed properly, instead of doing damage in a "main hand damage&helip;then off hand damage" fashion, it would animate as a one-two punch and deal more damage. I think this is a very welcome change leading away from the click fest some Action-RPGs fall prey to.
Runic Games is looking to make Torchlight II bigger and better in every way. The game promises to be larger with more expanses and space to explore. There will be indoor and outdoor environments with shifting time of day and weather conditions changing the mood of the game and sometimes different mobs to tackle. The main quest will be more involved. Travis told me that during the original Torchlight, on average, people finished the quest with their characters around level 32. In Torchlight II, they would like to extend that so that people finish around level 50. Torchlight II's story will be broken down into 'acts' and that the original game's main quest would probably only be on par with one act of the sequel.
Now for what you all have been clamoring for – how does the multiplayer feel. I'll start you off with this: you will want to get your friends to own this game. It was awesome to bust into a room with Max and Travis and the three of us – with our pets, of course – tearing up piles of skeletons and wraiths. Even triggering an event and having scores of little mobs pour out along with a boss provided plenty of opportunities to call forth my powers and lay waste to our enemies. Once creatures are destroyed, loot dropped and visible to you is your own. You do not see the loot of your companions to minimize the confusion. The monsters themselves scale in level and strength to the group of players around them. This dynamic fluidity makes dropping-in and dropping-out of games a breeze and does not inhibit or penalize the players in any way. I also like that you aren't tied to your teammates – you could go on ahead or stay behind as necessary (although I would assume you'd want to stay together for everyone’s sake).
I really only had two complaints. First, my companions were not easily discernible in the fray from my enemies. I did end up wasting some time trying to kill Max because his armor made him look like a skeleton warrior. My second is that while my companions and their pets were visible on my mini-map, I didn't have an arrow or some guidance as to what direction they were in in comparison to my position in the world. Please keep in mind, as I do, that this was still an early build and there is plenty of time to fix these minor criticisms.
All is not forgotten, though. The three classes/characters from the original may not be playable, but they will reside in the hub town as NPCs for you to discover. I, myself, said hello to the Vanquisher as I passed her on my way to the dungeon. Pets will also return as well as big update to the mod tool. The modding community never had it so good.
Torchlight II is currently only slated for a PC release and when that will be is still a mystery. No, I did not try to find out when they'll announce the date or when they'll announce the date of the announcement of the release date. So, just be patient – I'm certain it'll be worth it. I will say it was hinted that a Mac port could possibly be in the cards in the future, but nothing is confirmed. With new sweet classes, weapons and armor and bundled with online and LAN support, Torchlight II and Runic Games have worked their way into being the sleeper hits of E3 2011.
