Torchlight II Announced For 2011

Runic Games has announced a sequel to the popular action RPG Torchlight, planned for release in Spring 2011. One notable improvement from the first game is Torchlight II's inclusion of online co-op play, with LAN support and a matchmaking system. "The sequel will feature an updated version of the Torchlight editor, randomized overworld areas complete with weather effects, random dungeons, a selection of pets, fishing, limitless loot, and a retirement system which will allow users to retire an older character and bestow some benefits of it to a newly created character." An MMO set in the Torchlight world is still in development.

Built with Ogre3D

[johnhp]

Torchlight was built using Ogre3D, an open source graphics rendering engine. I hope that the sequel uses it too.

Ogre3D is written in C++ and is compatible with PC, Linux, Mac, iPhone, Android and other platforms. If you're into programming 3D games or simulations, you should definitely check it out. www.ogre3d.org

(I'm a long time user of Ogre3D but otherwise unaffiliated)

Re:A welcome trend.

[Anonymous Coward]

Runic is comprised primarily of developers previously from Flagship Studios (Hellgate London) previously from Blizzard North (Diablo 1 & 2). So they're not exactly 'newcomers', despite the age of the studio itself.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/08/05/0422232/Torchlight-II-Announced-For-2011#

Re:Built with Ogre3D

[xororand]

It worked for 2D Boy's World of Goo [2dboy.com].

Quotes:
"It’s only been 2 days since the release of the Linux version and it already accounts for 4.6% of the full downloads from our website."
"More copies of the game were sold via our website on the day the Linux version released than any other day. This day beat the previous record by 40%. There is a market for Linux games after all :)"

DRM

[emkyooess]

At first I was hesitant about Torchlight. But, it ['s boxed version] having no DRM swayed me to get it. I've had a lot of fun with it since. It's not the greatest "Diablo clone", but it's still good fun. LAN multiplayer, however, will breathe a LOT of life into it for me and, quite possibly, cause it to replace Diablo II as the game I play most with my roommates.

Re:A welcome trend.

[El_Muerte_TDS]

The other half of Runic comes from wildtangent. And the last half is in fact new, or at least according to their mobygames profiles.

And because Runic has 3 halfs their games are 50% more fun that the closest alternative.

Re:What about Fate?

[PotatoFarmer]

I played the Torchlight demo and I could not stop thinking how much more similar it was to Fate than to Diablo.

There's a good reason for that. Travis Baldree, the lead developer of Torchlight, also designed Fate.