Torchlight II is a 2012 action role-playing game developed by Runic Games. It is the sequel to Runic's 2009 RPG, Torchlight, and features peer-to-peer multiplayer support and extended modding capabilities.
Story and setting
At the end of the first Torchlight, the ancient dragon Ordrak — the source of the corruption under the town of Torchlight — was defeated by the Destroyer, the Alchemist, and the Vanquisher.
Several years have passed, and the Alchemist has become obsessed with the dangers of Ember and the Ember Blight from which he was apparently never cured. He steals Ordrak's Heart and destroys the town of Torchlight. Traveling to the Estherian Steppes, he begins siphoning magical energy from the Elemental Guardians, powerful beings who control the balance of the world's six elements.
Now, a new hero emerges, tasked with following the Alchemist's path of destruction and dealing with the chaos caused by his actions.
Acts
Torchlight II is divided into four major acts, each featuring a hub town and large overland areas as well as dungeons.
- Act I: The Estherian Steppes, a mountainous region inhabited by the Estherians. The area's town is the Estherian Enclave.
- Act II: The Mana Wastes, a desert which is home to the Zeraphi, their city Zeryphesh, and their enemies the Ezrohir.
- Act III: Grunnheim, a haunted forest that contains the ruins of an ancient dwarven civilization. An Imperial Camp serves as the player's town.
- Act IV: The Broken Mines, a short act that serves as the game's finale. The act's town is Minehead.
Classes
The game features four playable character classes. The three classes from the original Torchlight (Alchemist, Vanquisher, and Destroyer) are not playable, but do appear as non-player characters in the game.
- The Engineer is a heavy melee fighter who can construct bots and has ember-powered armor that collects and releases energy charges in combat.
- The Outlander is an agile character who specializes in ranged weapons and lore magic.
- The Berserker is a savage melee fighter who uses fist weapons and can summon spirit animals.
- The Embermage is a powerful elemental spellcaster.
Character stats, skills and abilities
- Skills — See individual class articles for skill tree information.
- Stats — Basic character attributes.
- Charge — Characters can build up and use charges during combat.
- Spells — Spell scrolls teach magical abilities that can be used by any character, regardless of class.
Items
- Items
- Item quality
- Sets — Equipment sets give bonuses when multiple pieces are worn at once.
- Legendaries — Legendary items are the rarest and highest-quality items.
- Enchanting — Enchanters can enhance items with stats and powers.
- Transmuting — Combining items to create a new item
- Identifying items
Monsters and NPCs
- Pets — Pets are permanent companions that fight alongside the player and carry loot back to town.
- Monsters
- Champions — Champions are stronger than normal monsters and have special powers.
Gameplay mechanics
- New Game Plus — After finishing the game, players will be able to restart with the same character, and monsters will scale to match (or surpass) your level.
- Co-op multiplayer is supported over internet and LAN. Multiplayer is peer-to-peer and allows the use of mods, if all players have the same mods installed.
- Mapworks — Available after defeating the final boss, the Mapworks allows you to purchase and activate level-specific, randomly generated maps, expanding Torchlight's shelf life indefinitely.
- Achievements — The game has 123 Steam achievements.
Differences from Torchlight I
Comparison chart provided by Runic Games.
- Torchlight II features a wider variety of environments to explore. There are two kinds of outdoor areas: passes and overworld areas, both of which are also randomized. The game also includes both main story dungeons and side dungeons.
- T2 is much larger than T1, with a more involved main questline, and several times as much content as the original game.
- Players can customize character appearance with choice of gender, face, skin color, hair color and style.
- Outdoor areas feature weather effects and day/night cycles.
- Retirement was originally announced as a returning feature, but was replaced by New Game Plus. Also, instead of an infinite dungeon, T2 offers randomized maps that the player could delve into infinitely, if they choose to.
- The user interface has been redesigned to better support multiplayer.
Modding
Torchlight II allows user-created mods. Mods may be used in multiplayer, though all users joining a game session will have to be running the same mods. Steam Workshop is supported. Users had the ability to create PAKS which could be downloaded to affect things like the drop rate and the spawn rate of mobs and champions, but PAK files are no longer supported as of version 1.22.2.40 and the release of GUTS.
- Main article: GUTS
Runic Games has released a new version of their game editor GUTS (which was formerly known as TorchEd for the first Torchlight). The editor was released on April 1, 2013.
See also
- Torchlight II walkthrough - A walkthrough for this game.
Reception
Torchlight II earned positive reviews on Metacritic and received a metascore of 88/100 on PC[1], 80/100 on PS4[2], 78/100 on Xbox One[3], 7.4/10 on Expert Game Review [4], and 81/100 on Nintendo Switch[5].