Torchlight is an action role-playing game developed by Runic Games and
published by Perfect World, released for Windows in October 2009. The
fantasy-themed game is set in the fictional town of Torchlight and the
expansive caverns and dungeons nearby, which adventurers explore to collect
valuable loot and battle hordes of monsters. Following the October 2009
digital distribution release, a Windows retail box version was released in the
U.S. in January 2010 by Encore, Inc, and JoWooD Entertainment published a retail
box in Europe in April 2010. A port for OS X was developed by World Domination
Industries and released through Steam on May 12, 2010. Runic Games and World
Domination Industries developed a port for Xbox Live Arcade which was released
on March 9, 2011. A Linux port was released as part of the game's inclusion
in the Humble Indie Bundle 6. Development of the game was led by
Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, joined by Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, and
the team that worked with Baldree on the original incarnation of Mythos. In
September 2012, Runic Games released a sequel, Torchlight II, for Windows.
Gameplay The player controls a lone hero who
explores a series of randomized dungeons, fighting large numbers of
enemies and collecting equipment, gold, and other loot. The game also features a
single town which serves as a hub, to which the player character can
periodically return to buy and sell items to NPC vendors and obtain quests.
As the protagonist delves into the dungeon, a series of quests are
presented which involve battling unique bosses that advance the main storyline.
Optionally, the player may take on side quests, random quests or visit branching
dungeon areas. The graphics are three dimensional and viewed from an overhead
perspective, similar to the isometric perspective used in the original Diablo.
On personal computers, the game is controlled using a point-and-click mouse
interface and keyboard hotkeys, while the Xbox Live Arcade version uses a
controller and has a completely redesigned user interface.
The game generates each level of the dungeon by assembling modular "chunks"
of the game environment. Each chunk is designed by hand and may be composed of
multiple rooms. They can contain scripted events and interactive objects
such as levers that open secret doors or cause bridges to move. This approach to
level generation is intended to create dungeons with more purposeful design,
instead of environments that simply look like "crossword puzzles that have been
extruded upwards." As in Fate, the player has a permanent
pet which fights alongside and can carry and sell loot. The initial pet can be a
wolf dog, a lynx or, in the retail version of the game, a ferret; the
player can feed fish to their pet to transform it into different creatures.
Also present in the game is a retirement system, in which the player can pass on
an heirloom item from an old character to a newly created one, likened to a New
Game Plus game mode. Torchlight features three character
classes. The Destroyer is a wandering warrior
skilled in melee combat, although he also has the ability to call upon
ancestral spirits to produce magical effects.
The Alchemist is a spellcaster drawn to the magical power of Ember. He can fire
blasts of magic and electricity from his specialized focus glove and can summon
imps and steampunk-styled robots. The Vanquisher is an elite city guard,
sent undercover to investigate the town of Torchlight. She specializes in ranged
weapons and can also use traps against her foes.
The player develops their character by placing points into class-specific skill
trees. Further, there is a separate category of spells that any character
can learn from scrolls, regardless of class.
Plot In the fantasy world that serves as the
setting of Torchlight, Ember is a mysterious ore which has the power to
imbue people and items with magical power. The mining boomtown called
Torchlight is built above a rich vein of Ember, and adventurers are drawn there
seeking the magical substance and the enchanted items it creates. However, as
the player character explores the dungeons below Torchlight, they discover
that Ember has a corrupting influence which led to the fall of past
civilizations and endangers those who use it in the present.
The player character arrives in town and is recruited by Syl, a sage who is
searching for her mentor, an alchemist named Master Alric who has disappeared
in the nearby mine. At the bottom of the mine tunnels, the player finds a passage
into older, crypt-like chambers below, eventually discovering that the entire
dungeon is a "layer cake of ruined civilizations." Alric ambushes the
player and reveals he has become evil due to the corrupting influence of
Ember. After fighting a series of monsters and henchmen to reach the
bottom of the dungeon, the player must face Alric and an ancient creature named
Ordrak who is the source of the Ember's corruption.
Development Pre-production on Torchlight began in
August 2008, shortly after the dissolution of Flagship Studios. Runic
Games was founded by Travis Baldree and veterans of Blizzard North and Flagship:
Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer and Peter Hu. The "entire Flagship Seattle team"
consisting of 14 people signed on to Runic Games at the time of its
formation. Having lost the rights to Mythos, the Runic team saw the
development of a new game as a way to "finish what [they] started," although
they would have to start over with none of the code or art assets from Mythos.
From the start, the company's ultimate goal was the development of a massively
multiplayer online role-playing game with gameplay similar to that of Mythos
or Diablo, but before tackling the MMO, Runic's founders decided to "go back to
[their] roots" with a smaller game that they could refine and polish within a
relatively short production cycle. This single player game was intended to
introduce the Torchlight game world to the public ahead of the MMO. Further, it
allowed the team to get a released game under their belts sooner than if they
had immediately started on the MMO. Full production on the game started around
November 2008, giving the entire project a development period of approximately 11
months. As of July 2009, 25 team members were working at Runic Games.
In a feature article on Gamasutra, art director Jason Beck explained that
Torchlight's art style was inspired by comic books and classic film animation,
using stylized character designs combined with painterly background
textures. The developers have described the game's look as inspired by "Dragon's
Lair meets The Incredibles." The team chose to give the game world a lighter
fantasy tone to make it more inviting, rather than utilizing a "dark and
gritty" style. The game uses the OGRE open source 3D
graphics engine and CEGUI system for GUI, although the rest of the game
engine was built by Runic. The game was designed to run on a wide range of
systems and does not require shaders. = Audio =
Diablo composer and sound designer Matt Uelmen also joined the team, creating
original music and sound for the game. Uelmen based his score on the pacing and
context of the gameplay, which he observed even in very early playable
builds of the game. For the "Torchlight" town theme, Uelmen incorporated some
elements reminiscent of his "Tristram" theme from Diablo, but also tried to
give it a distinctly different sound. For this piece, he recorded over 200
live takes using a twelve-string guitar among other instruments. For other
portions of the score, he played a pedal steel guitar, and created a different
sound from the instrument's typical use in country music.
The developers cast voice actors with the help of veteran voice actress Lani
Minella, who also performed in the game. = Xbox 360 development =
In August 2010, Runic CEO Max Schaefer revealed that the game was in
development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, aiming for release by the end
of the year. In January 2011, Runic announced that Torchlight would be
released for Xbox Live Arcade in early 2011, but a release for PlayStation 3
was no longer planned. Because Microsoft is acting as publisher of the XBLA
release, Torchlight will likely remain exclusive to the Xbox 360 on consoles.
The Xbox 360 port was developed as a collaboration between Runic Games and
World Domination Industries. Runic became more heavily involved in the port
in mid-2010 when it became clear that its controls and graphical interface
required a complete overhaul to adapt for use with console-style controllers.
As such, the player character is now directly driven by the controller
without any virtual cursors. The game also includes some new content such as
additional armor sets and a new pet, and incorporates technology developed for
Torchlight II including character animation blending and an improved
automap. = Modding =
The PC version of Torchlight is designed to allow extensive modding by players,
and Runic Games has released the game editing tools they used to create the
game as a free download. The editor, known as "TorchED" is intended to be
intuitive to use and allows the user to switch between editing levels and
playing in them without leaving the editor. Player, monster, and item
statistics, language translations, and even particle systems can be customized
within the editor. TorchED is also capable of editing quest events,
scripting, and global game balance. Further, the game uses publicly
available file formats, allowing users to import models and animations with
relative ease. Reception
= Critical reception = Torchlight received positive reviews;
the PC release currently holds a score of 83 out of 100 on Metacritic and
84.97% on GameRankings while the Xbox 360 release holds a score of 81 out of
100 on Metacritic and 83.32% on GameRankings.
Writing for RPGamer, staff reviewer Anna Marie Neufeld praised Torchlight's
"phenomenal music and great art direction" as well as its addictive
combat but criticized the game's storyline as shallow. Rock, Paper,
Shotgun reviewer John Walker found the core gameplay to be a highly focused and
engaging refinement of the dungeon crawl genre, albeit one with a "tissue-thin"
story and quests. In his review in Game Informer, Adam Biessener listed
responsive controls, attractive animations and effects, and clever enemy
designs as some qualities that set Torchlight above most other action RPGs.
GameSpot's Brett Todd found the game's pace engaging, noting a deep variety of
monsters and loot, but found the lack of multiplayer to be an omission. Several
reviewers cited the game's low price as a positive point. The Australian video
game talk show Good Game's two reviewers gave the game a 7/10 and 8.5/10.
Many reviewers compared the game to the Diablo series, some describing it as the
best Diablo-like game since Diablo II and "the best Diablo clone in years."
Adam Biessener of Game Informer stated that "the soul of Diablo hasn't been so
ably captured in years," and The Escapist's John Funk wrote "Torchlight
absolutely nails the formula that made Diablo so addictive." RPGamer stated
that Torchlight "manages to overcome the Diablo expectations by being a game that
can stand on its own merits." Satchmo on the blog PX2C gave an overall score of
9/10 saying that "It is a fine entry into a genre that doesn't have much
representation on the Xbox". = Sales =
In July 2011, Torchlight sales surpassed 1 million copies. As of 2015, the game
has sold almost 2 million copies. = Awards =
Torchlight won the Best Debut Game Award at the 2010 Game Developers Choice
Awards. Sequel
On August 4, 2010 Runic Games announced Torchlight II which will be a
continuation of the story, featuring a co-op mode, new player characters, an
"overworld" with multiple outdoor areas, and a new user interface. Although the
developers originally estimated a 2011 release, the game was finally released
in 2012. Runic Games had originally planned to
begin work on an MMORPG set in the Torchlight game world immediately
following the release of the first game. Runic entered into a partnership with
Chinese online game developer and operator Perfect World Co., Ltd. to
publish the MMO worldwide. At some point after the release of the first game,
Runic Games decided to develop a sequel to Torchlight with co-op multiplayer
capabilities, temporarily putting the MMO on the back burner. On September 20,
2012, the developers revealed they were no longer pursuing plans to create an
MMO in the Torchlight universe. See also
Fate Dungeon crawl
References External links
Torchlight official site Torchlight at MobyGames
Torchlight guide at StrategyWiki