Torchlight 3, formerly known as Frontiers, is coming this summer
There's a closed alpha in January.
Echtra games have announced today that Torchlight 3, sequel to the nearly eight year old Torchlight 2, is coming this summer. But wait, aren't they also developing Torchlight Frontiers? Yes, they're the same thing. Sort of. Frontiers was originally planned for a 2019 release and eventually delayed into this year. It's starting out the new decade with a new name, new payment model, and new focus.
Back when it was called Frontiers, the third Torchlight game was planned as a free-to-play persistent online game. It will launch on Steam this summer as a buy-to-play game with the option to play online or off. Echtra CEO Max Schaefer explains the thought behind all the changes.
During development, you often discover what type of product a game was meant to be and we found Torchlight Frontiers was meant to be a true successor to Torchlight I & II. Based on this and extensive feedback from our Alpha testers, we decided it was time to take the game back to its roots and model it after the classic Torchlight games that ARPG fans have come to love.
To hear it from Schaefer yourself, check out Echtra's announcement video today. The official trailer is below.
Out on the frontier players will also be able to maintain their own account-based fort where they'll be able to "upgrade gear, and make renovations to show it off to their friends and the world." You can build a stable for your pets too, since Echtra imply you might be swapping pets about as you find new ones. Neat.
Just recently, John Walker lamented that Torchlight 2 didn't feel it had stood the test of time for him personally. "I think the crucial factor is, in 2012 I was able to report that while it added nothing new to the genre, it was still joyful anyway. Now, seven years later, that lack of innovation catches up with it," he said.
Perhaps that's true for you as well. Seems that Torchlight 3 won't exactly be banking on innovation either, with this return to its origins. Maybe it will be a more shiny and new version of what originally made Torchlight 2 a contender as a Diablo alternative.
You can wishlist Torchlight 3 over on Steam before its release later this year.