The Daily Grind: Getting Torchlight?

by Kyle Horner Oct 27th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: New titles, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Today is the launch of Runic Games' Torchlight, although you probably know them best as the guys who worked on Mythos. The MMO version of Torchlight isn't out for another 18 months or so, but you can get a taste of it as of today, which is of course the game's release date -- imagine that!

Not only is the game developed by the former Mythos team, it's also headed by Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II. Speaking of those games, we hope you liked their music, because the same man who wrote it worked on Torchlight as well. The pedigree is definitely high, and from our hands-on experience it shines through exceedingly well.

So will you be getting Torchlight? At the low price of $20, it's not a hard sell considering the quality of the game. Plus, with full mod tools being included in that price, free fan-made content should be falling down from the heavens in no time flat.

Tags: diablo, diablo-2, diablo-ii, perfect-world, runic, runic-games, steam, tdg, the-daily-grind, torchlight, torchlight-mmo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Pedro said on 8:24AM 10-27-2009

For that price i might consider getting the game. But i will wait for reviews from other players before purchasing it. No more blind buy of a game immediately after it is released.
By the way, could you guys do a review of it even though the MMO part is still so far away?

Lethality said on 8:43AM 10-27-2009

Definitely... well worth the $20...
Although Steam won't let me in today for some reason...

Mierk said on 8:48AM 10-27-2009

Pre-Ordered

Grok said on 8:53AM 10-27-2009

The game will be officially released at 12 pm EST.

I'm really looking forward to playing this tonight after work!

Zed Fontaine said on 9:10AM 10-27-2009

*wraps his arms around his legs and starts wobbleing "Nine more hours, nine more hours, nine more ours, EIGHT more hours, eight more hours..."

Sadly Steam isnt "done" loading the game, and it'l take about 8-9 hours to finish. Groawl!

((Yes, I'm buying it. and i'll play it, and, and, and, i'll lurve it!))

Rollins said on 9:11AM 10-27-2009

Dungeon crawlers are almost never very fun single player. No multiplayer, no sale.

royale said on 10:03AM 10-27-2009

No multiplayer YET... but the multiplayer half of the game will still be out long before D3 so I'm gonna check it out in the meantime and see how it plays.

Macabre said on 11:40AM 10-27-2009

Amen!

Looks fun, but only in a multiplayer setting. I'll wait 'til the game's actually finished to consider it.

Not a bad strategy to keep the cash flow going while they finish the game though, but just not for me.

Undini said on 10:13AM 10-27-2009

I had completely forgotten this release, so thank you very much for the reminder. I'll be buying this now as I was just looking for another game to toss in a few extra hours now and then. This will most likely be nice to play while waiting for D3, and the fact that they give their dev tools to the players and are aiming for MMO later on will probably make it a very fun experience.

royale said on 1:47PM 10-27-2009

Lvl 7 so far and I'm loving it, even though I'm not too often interested in single player games. It reminds me very heavily of my first hours playing D2 and the playstyle seems very D3-like. =D

Jack said on 10:25AM 10-27-2009

Torchlight is no Diablo its just a clone like so many others. This co-designers where fired for a reason. Mythos never seen a release for a reason!

And there is no way this game will be better them Diablo III just for Battle.net alone !

stormwaltz said on 10:26AM 10-27-2009

I never cared for Diablo, so I'll pass. I hadn't heard it was going to have an MM component, though.

"...free fan-made content should be falling down from the heavens in no time flat."

Sturgeon's Law (and prior experience with NWN) suggests that 90% of the fan-made content will be bubbling up from hell.

double9s said on 1:03PM 10-27-2009

But 10% of it will be pretty awesome.

Tom said on 10:47AM 10-27-2009

I will most probably be getting this game since it is relatively inexpensive.

However, it looks suspiciously Fate-like, and I did tire of Fate rather quickly. It's hard to imagine that randomly generated dungeons could be very fun or challenging when you consider the kind of thought, planning, and creativity that goes into the nonrandom, deliberately designed dungeons in other games.

Still, as I said, Torchlight is not that expensive. I'm curious to see the early reviews on it. I am also curious to see how well the MMO part is implemented once they get to that point.

Neolith8300 said on 12:32PM 10-27-2009

It is also the same team that worked on fate. This is from the FAQs on the Torchlight website:

"Torchlight is an action role-playing-game for the PC made by the creators of Diablo, Fate, and the never-released Mythos among other games."

Not sure why it wasn't mentioned in the article.

Rollins said on 11:41AM 10-27-2009

It's just rather disappointing to me because I can't imagine it would've been that hard to add in simple cooperative multiplayer. They wouldn't have even needed closed servers.

Oneiromancer said on 1:30PM 10-27-2009

Pre-ordered. I don't care at all about lack of multiplayer. I played Diablo, Diablo 2, Darkstone, Nox, and Titan's Quest all single-player, and don't feel like I missed out on anything. I enjoy my MMOs but for a game like this, single player is fine by me.

Alz said on 1:59PM 10-27-2009

I pre-ordered the game from Steam. I guess this is my reminder to install it.

Joey_the_mad26 said on 6:57PM 10-27-2009

I know this article is almost a day old, so most folks checking in on Massively are not likely to see it, but I have to comment on how blown away I am by this game. When I tried Mythos before Flagship's demise I enjoyed it, to an extent, but I just was not able to get absorbed by it. But, with Torchlight, I was drawn in from the start. From the graphics that harken to the golden age of Warcraft, as well as the playing machanics that take one back to early Diablo; and yes, I'm aware of the connections via the game's creators and development team to Blizzard, so the similarities are obvious. But, what I love here, is that the team went into this with a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, there-by transfering into the game the elements of the best dungeon crawler games. Coupled with amazing spell and weapon effects, coloful characters, and a plot that is (Big Shock) acutally good, this should be a title that gets way more attention than it is. I understand that the Multiplayer aspect of it is a ways off, but I hope Massively still puts up some more info about it. If you're reading this, and you have yet to buy this game off Steam (the best and safest meathod) you should spend the 20 dollars. It is WELL worth the cost.

Chris said on 7:37PM 10-27-2009

Just want to chime in to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying this game.

The art style, the interface, the whole thing is just really nicely put together. Checking my journal I've played an hour already and the minutes have flown by.

Fun game, 20$. Just get it.