Torchlight 2 is Big, Still Planning Summer Launch

Posted By: Dave Bast In: PC On: 23 Jul

Like many of you I’ve spent the last few weeks doing my best to keep cool during what feels like the longest and most oppressive summer in a long time. I had hoped to spend at least some of my summer days exploring Runic Games’ upcoming Torchlight 2, but when summer started and continued without the game’s release I assumed it was going to be pushed back. Well apparently Runic is still on track to release it this summer, but even though this summer feels endless they’re running out of time. The reason for the delay says Runic President Travis Baldree is because “It’s a big game and we’ve still got some polish to go.” Considering the summer ends on September 21^st they still technically have over a month to finish polishing the game and release it in order to keep their promise.

There’s an update on Runic Games’ Torchlight 2 blog explaining exactly why they’re spending so much time wrapping-up the game; it’s vastly larger than its predecessor. The game is so much larger in fact that they’ve created this handy little infographic comparing the details side-by-side. A few of these are more important statistics for a dungeon crawler, most notably the increases in boss battles, skill types, and item variety. Obviously their biggest selling point is that the game is still $20, the same price as the original.

While volume of content is important it’s not all that matters. Anyone who has played or even read about Diablo 3 is most likely aware of its lack of end-game content. According to Blizzard bigwig Mike Morhaime, Blizzard is currently working on a solution to give players what they want. Until then however the negative press will continue as will the angry forum posts from once excited fans. While they may be able to add content that revitalizes the game, failure to do so could drive even more away from the game.

So while it’s likely that Runic Games’ is in fact working on polishing content for a summer release, there’s also the possibility that they’re spending time making sure there’s enough end-game content in place to keep their players happy. I would be very surprised, after the very public flame out of Diablo 3, that Runic would release a game with the same problems. I’m sure some of it is probably what they say it is, polish, but I would almost guarantee they’re also working on some sort of additional end-game as a precaution.

Either way, we’ll get to see the finished product before the summer ends, if we haven’t all melted by then.